News
BIG DEALS CLOSING IN 3, 2, 1...
September 19, 2012
| The rainmakers Bisnow has lined up for our 4th Annual New York State of the Market event tomorrow at the Hilton New York barely have time between deal closings, but they carved some out for you (warm fuzzies all around). What they're teeing up: |
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| Leslie Himmel, here with Cushman & Wakefield global brokerage chair Bruce Mosler and Brookfield Office Properties US CEO Mitch Rudin, tells us Himmel + Meringoff Properties is refinancing its properties at today's low interest rates, including one deal in the works five years ahead of maturity. (Strong sponsors at the bank are like kids in a candy store nowadays.) At this rate, refinancing is worth it even after defeasance and other loan costs. She says Class-B properties in Midtown South are so in vogue that Class-A vacancy has gone up while Class-B's vacancy has gone down and its rents have risen. Her company has signed 27 leases in Midtown South and Midtown West in the past 18 months, including Operative Media's 31k SF at 6 E 32nd St last month, plus a few over the past few weeks that have yet to be announced. |
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| William Macklowe Co CEO Billy Macklowe says WMC's acquisition of 386 Park Ave S from Savanna and Monday Properties is scheduled to close next week, and then Billy's firm will reintroduce the 270k SF property "with a bang, not a whimper" (great news for fireworks; terrible news for the New York Men's Whimpering Choir). It's about half leased now, but remember that his most recent redevelopment effort, 636 Sixth Ave, was 65% leased when WMC bought it in January 2011, and now it's full. The market knows what his company does in transforming buildings, he says, and that means it can ramp up leasing at 386 Park Ave S without waiting for its capital investment to show. And Billy's counting on rents to rise quickly so they'll be in place as more leases roll there in the next year. (Savanna founder Christopher Schlank and Monday Properties CEO Anthony Westreich are also speaking at our event.) |
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| Trinity Real Estate prez Jason Pizer (with Linda Riguardi, Larry Silverstein, and JLL NY president Peter Riguardi) tells us his firm's 15-building portfolio will be 97.5% leased once he closes a 100k SF deal in the works now. (Pssst: Trinity's website lists three blocks totaling 99k SF on the seventh, eighth, and ninth floors of 350 Hudson St as having leases out.) He says it's a 10-year deal with a software company at $50/SF and then $54/SF rents. |
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| He also tells us efforts to up residential zoning in Hudson Square from 4% to 20% (still much lower than in Flatiron and Chelsea) are going "decently well," and his company is meeting with the zoning board today. Any residential development is likely to be on empty lots rather than tear-downs because the zoning says any building above 70k SF that comes down has to be replaced with similarly sized commercial. The lot on Sixth just north of Canal, which we snapped in July, would become a 444 SF school topped by apartments, Jason says. In the meantime, those food trucks are making us hungry (and these pretzels are making us thirsty). |
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| RCG Longview's Michael Boxer tells us pension funds are so in to debt lately (RCG Longview's risk/reward balance is attractive, offering 10% to 14% yields, he says). His company, a lender controlled by institutional investment manager Ramius and boots-on-the-ground owner and manager The Feil Organization, has no interest in loaning to own, he says. And that enables RCG Longview to get in on some deals as a mezz lender when the senior lenders might not otherwise want another lender in the stack stressing out the borrower. Hear more from all these folks—plus L&L Holding prez Rob Lapidus, Avison Young's Greg Kraut, CBRE's Michael Laginestra, Lee & Associates NY prez Jim Wacht, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan's Ross Moskowitz, and Arent Fox's Jackie Weiss—tomorrow. Sign up now! |
