Cushman & Wakefield Inc.

It sure is a good time to own real estate in Manhattan.

More than $13.6 billion in real-estate sales closed in the borough in the first quarter of 2007, with another $11 billion under contract. That puts the 2007 investment-sales market at a pace to whip last year's $34 billion record.

The numbers were unveiled at a quarterly breakfast on Tuesday morning hosted by Cushman & Wakefield at the Midtown power eatery Michael's.

Other reasons you'd want to be a landlord: Average office asking rents now stand at $53.43 per square foot--the highest average ever--and the office vacancy rate fell to 5.7 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006, its lowest mark since September 11, 2001.

"We have seen unprecedented rental growth in the Manhattan office market over the past year," said Cushman & Wakefield big man Joe Harbert.

More analysis on the record-setting numbers in this week's print edition of The Observer, out on Wednesday. And find the entire Cushman & Wakefield press release after the jump.  read more »

- John Koblin

Wowza! Apparently they buy buildings in Paris too.

Naturally, it's a bunch of burly American I-bankers who made the biggest single-asset deal in European history.

Lehman Brothers has purchased Coeur Defense, a series of five buildings, from Goldman Sachs for 2.11 billion euros, or $2.8 billion U.S. dollars. It's a record for the overseas bunch.

Cushman & Wakefield, which also advised the biggest single-building sale ever in U.S. history at 666 Fifth Avenue for $1.8 billion, advised Lehman Brothers in this deal.  read more »

Full release after the jump.

- John Koblin

The submissions are in! The Real Estate Board of New York has announced the nominees for its Ingenious Deal of the Year awards (the Ingenies, perhaps?) in leasing, sales and finance.

Here is a breakdown for number of submissions, by firm:

Leasing Cushman & Wakefield: 6 CB Richard Ellis: 6 Jones Lang LaSalle: 1 Grubb & Ellis: 1 ABS Real Estate Partners: 1 Sales Studley: 2 Massey Knakal: 1 CB Richard Ellis: 1 Finance: The Singer & Bassuk Org: 1

All in all, CB Richard Ellis put together one more submission (7) than Cushman & Wakefield (6). But you see how much that helped Dreamgirls!

There will be three winners, one from each category, to be announced April 17.

All the deals, brokers and nominees after the jump.  read more »

- John Koblin

The Real Estate Board of New York has announced the industry's new promising commercial broker. His name is Randy Modell, a 28-year-old broker at ABS Partners.

Mr. Modell has a special eye for deals uptown: He brokered a sale at 122 East 125th Street to Fabco Shoes; he rented space out to The Municipal Credit Union (MCU) in the Harlem USA Building; and he's currently marketing 108 East 125th Street, a 120,000-square-foot development site on sale for $20 million.

Now, let's see what this award does for Mr. Modell's career. No doubt, the big boys at Cushman & Wakefield, Massey Knakal and CBRE have their collective eye on him and his days doing deals at 125th street might be drawing a close.

- John Koblin

If the CB Richard Ellis and Cushman & Wakefield commercial brokerage rivalry is the most entertaining in real estate, it's even better downtown, where the two brokerages are truly the only moving forces. C & W announced this week that their superstar team fielding the likes of Larry Tannenbaum, Frank Cento and Andy Peretz just got a little stronger: Joseph Harbert managed to pluck away Bernhard Weinstabel, the multi-lingual, bronze-faced, foreign-tenant expert and Austrian native from GVA Williams. Mr. Weinstabel, who speaks German, English, French and Japanese, also spent some time at CBRE.

Real-estate brokers tend to describe one another (privately) in one of two ways: either as a really nice guy or a major-league asshole. Mr. Weinstabel's downtown peers describe him as one of the nicest guys you'll meet.

- John Koblin

In dorky commercial news, SL Green has two announcements.

First, it has sold 70 West 36th Street for $62.5 million. The buyer is not disclosed, but SL Green brags that it will have a $50 million return on the sale. A pair of Cushman & Wakefield dudes, Richard Baxter and Ron Cohen, handled the deal for the REIT.

Second, it has promoted Lawrence Swigger to senior vice president of leasing. Clearly, execs were impressed with the nine-year vet. He ran leasing at buildings like the Graybar building at 420 Lexington.

- John Koblin

The most expensive building sale in U.S. history, $1.8 billion for 666 Fifth Avenue, is a closed deal.

Cushman & Wakefield, which arranged the sale, released the news on Tuesday. (No matter that it closed on Jan. 12, according to city records--it's a slow news day).

Kushner Companies is the new owner, Tishman Speyer the seller. (The Observer is owned by Jared Kushner of Kushner Companies.)

The full release after the jump.  read more »

- John Koblin

For years, Hudson Square has been an echo chamber of rumors. The vacancy rate is amazingly high, but brokers--especially those at Cushman & Wakefield brought in by Trinity Real Estate to shake things up--promise that will change.

In Wednesday's Times, Andy Peretz of C&W said, "We have so many deals and so many leases out, we are going to see [the vacancy rate] drop in 30 days."

Well, he's no doubt referring to the Viacom lease that The Observer reported today.

But what else out there is there for Hudson Square? Is this pending vacancy-rate plunge actually legit? Or just a bloated campaign pitch to attract more tenants?

The Real Estate will be watching closely.

- John Koblin

Up went the Manhattan commercial market in 2006, so much so that analysts now compare it to the boom year of 2000, one of the healthiest years ever for any American commercial market.

A new report from Cushman & Wakefield puts the Manhattan office vacancy rate at 6.7 percent at the end of last year, down from 8.4 percent at the end of 2005. The average asking rent for office space in the borough hit $50.56 a square foot, up nearly 25 percent from the end of 2005, and right below the all-time asking rent of $50.92 at the end of 2000.

The Cushman & Wakefield report, unveiled on Tuesday morning amid a bacon-egg-bagel breakfast at Midtown power eatery Michael's, also noted healthy growth in 2006 in the investment sales hotel, and retail markets of Manhattan.

Other notable nuggets in the report:

• There's no office space left for leasing in Greenwich Village or in Soho.
• Midtown South has the nation's second-lowest vacancy rate at 5.6 percent.
• There were 41 leases in 2006 with rents above $100 a foot, more than triple the number in '05.
• Average retail asking rents on prime Fifth Avenue in Midtown averaged $1,500 a foot in 2006.
• Foreign investors accounted for 15 percent of the investment sales of last year.
Release on the report after the jump.  read more »
- Tom Acitelli
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In renewal news, Phillips-Van Heusen has renewed and expanded to nearly 200,000 square feet at 200 Madison. The apparel company that brings you Calvin Klein, Bass and Izod renewed its 150,000-square-foot lease and expanded by an additional 47,629 feet at its Murray Hill home.

Cushman & Wakefield's Matthew Astrachan, Mitchell Konsker and Steven Bauer represented the tenant.  read more »

Release after the jump.

- John Koblin

It’s been a busy week for Murray Hill Properties.  read more »

It’s been a busy week for Murray Hill Properties.  read more »

Cushman & Wakefield, one of the biggest commercial brokerages in New York City, has called a press conference at 10:30 on Tuesday morning at the Rainbow Room. A spokesperson for the brokerage told The Real Estate that "big news" would be announced, possibly involving a merger or acquisition.

Will this press conference have an Italian flavor? Or will last-minute rumors about Vornado buying Cushman pan out?  read more »

UPDATE: The IFIL Group, controlled by the the Agnelli family, will buy a 67.5 percent stake of Cushman & Wakefield for $563 million. The release after the jump and details to follow. - Tom Acitelli & John Koblin

A historic 14-story converted office building south of Columbus Circle is selling for at least $126  read more »

• Businesses sweat Second Avenue subway work.
[amNY]
• State property tax breaks favor affluent areas.
[NY Times]
• City shifts aims in battle against rats.
[NY Times]
• Firm scraps plans for Staten Island NASCAR stadium.
[NY Times]
• Workers sue Manhattan restaurant Daniel.
[NY Times]
• Reckson rebuffs Icahn's bid - again.
[NY Times]
• Mayor gives tepid support to congestion pricing.
[NY Post]
• Aby Rosen calls in favors on 980 Madison.
[NY Post]
• Court tosses out GM Building suit against Macklowe. [lower]
[NY Post]
• West 57th timeshare a boon to Metropolitan Tower.
[NY Post]
• Italians mull buying control of Cushman & Wakefield.
[NY Post]
• Council members: Make 421-a all about affordability.
[Daily News]
• City property tax system favors homeowners over landlords.
[NY Sun]

Did we miss any New York City real estate news this morning? Please send along tips and links.

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The rents for retail space in Manhattan have increased, according to a new report from the Real Estate Board of New York. The REBNY report gels with one from brokerage Cushman & Wakefield in late October that declared Fifth Avenue near 57th Street the most expensive real estate corridor in the world rent-wise.

The Cushman report said retail space in that area rents for around $1,350 a square foot annually, a 3.8 percent increase from 2005. The REBNY report says Fifth Avenue ground-floor retail space in Midtown now averages $1,035 a foot, a 27 percent increase over last fall.

The rest of Manhattan? Also more expensive than 2005.

The REBNY release after the jump.  read more »

- Tom Acitelli

Suck on this, Champs Elysées! For the third year running, New York's Fifth Avenue boasts the most exorbitant retail rents on the planet.

According to brokerage Cushman & Wakefield's annual talley, which tracks the world's top 233 shopping locations across 47 countries:

An average 1,000 square foot unit on Fifth Avenue, at its most expensive stretch near the junction with 57th Street, now costs around US$1,350 per square foot.

Joanne Podell, senior director of Cushman & Wakefield's retail services, told Commercial Property News that the sharpest increases have come in--gasp!--Midtown:

"Retail from 50th to 42nd, there's been a significant increase in rent. They've almost doubled. That speaks to the power of Fifth Avenue and the short stretch of space."

Of course, envoking that power doesn't necessarily translate to an equally high rate of cash-register reciepts, noted C&W's Gene Spiegelman:

"This is not just about sales at the till, but about the brand value of retail real estate. In a world of advertising 'clutter', we see companies increasingly leveraging their brands through real estate and Manhattan's Fifth Avenue is a prime example of this trend."

See, it's not about the money. It's about leverage. Get it? Guess you just have to be there.  read more »

- Chris Shott

Cushman and Wakefield issued its first quarter report on commercial leases. Guess what? They think the market looks pretty good!

There was special attention paid to lower Manhattan--and the squabbles over whether the district can absorb the millions of square feet of new office space called for in the plans for Ground Zero. Despite an increase in vacancy rates this quarter, the report argues for continued development in the financial district.

"You have the fourth largest business district in the nation holding its own in an environment of uncertainty," Mr. Mosler said. "The fact is that New York City is facing an office space shortage, which requires immediate attention to shift ongoing debate back to business. Preservation of New York's stature as the worlds financial and business capital depends to a large degree on fulfilling the needs of growing companies. Downtown Manhattan is the most viable option for the near and mid-term to meet the demand for new office space."

Some excerpts:  read more »

• Average asking rents for Manhattan office space reached $43.20 per square foot at the end of March, their highest point in three and a half years.
• The vacancy rate for class-A space in Midtown available directly from owners stood at 5.8 percent at the end of the first quarter, up slightly from 5.6 percent at yearend.
• In Downtown Manhattan, average asking rents rose to roughly $35 per square foot, up from $31 at the end of the year. The Downtown vacancy rate rose to 11.6 percent from 10.6 percent during the same time period.
• In the first quarter of 2006, the Manhattan retail market saw a number of brands break onto the scene as retailers who previously had a presence in department stores or assorted boutiques started to lease their own space.
• With an approximate 70,000 room inventory, Manhattan will see about 3,500 hotel rooms leave the market due to conversions to residential use, but these rooms are all expected to be replaced between now and 2010 through new construction, with a particular focus on the West Side.

Full press release after the jump.

- Tom McGeveran

David Colby sat in the café of Coliseum Books, just blocks from the Algonquin Hotel where he’d sp  read more »