News
LOBBY HOBBY
October 4, 2010
| The big dog was in town to meet with NAIOP NYC’S Developing Leaders program at Ackman-Ziff’s E. 42nd St. offices. When we heard NAIOP chairman-elect and Forsgate Industrial Partners partner Alex Klatskin would be here Thursday, we sat down with him to learn about NAIOP’s local and national lobbying efforts. |
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| Alex noted three trepidations for NAIOP’s national government affairs division: the carried interest taxation bill, the federal wetlands permitting process, and Financial Accounting Standards Board’s lease accounting standards. NAIOP is fighting changes to the tax treatment of carried interest, which could increase taxes from the capital gain rate of 15% to as high as 35%, hinder development, adversely impact the flow of capital to deals, and disrupt investment relationships. Attempts from the federal government to change wording in the Clean Water Act to increase its jurisdiction and permitting authority puts another tax on real estate, and NAIOP wants a program that provides simplification and certainty to landowners without undue regulation. |
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| Alex, with Lexington Realty Trust’s Joe Neckles, Beckerman Real Estate Fund Advisory’s Sagar Dalal, Wells Fargo Bank’s Joe Tufariello (chapter prez), and Ackman-Ziff’s Rick Lechtman. FASB’s potential changes to new lease accounting standards make corporations put leases on balance sheets as an asset and liability—this causes mark-to-market issues, affects how real estate is financed in NY, and with higher tenant improvements, will make it harder to get longer leases. It’s important you go see your elected representatives, Alex urges. It’s not that they’re against what NAIOP’s fighting for, but they may just not know about the issues. Rick, who chairs NAIOP NYC’s government affairs committee, put it in simpler terms: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” NAIOP NYC will be working on more of a local level, traveling to Albany in February. |
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| The chapter also recently invited Savanna Real Estate Fund managing director Kevin Chisholm, SL Green managing director Isaac Zion, and RXR Realty president/CFO Michael Maturo (with moderator Jon Caplan of JLL) to discuss the state of the office equity markets and the deals they’re doing. We learned that Savanna has added about 470k SF to its Manhattan office portfolio this year, while RXR took on a pair of office acquisitions earlier this year. SL Green has been particularly active, snatching up 600 Lexington and 125 Park (where the event was held, in Haworth’s showroom), and selling 1221 Avenue of the Americas for $576M. |
