News
Not the Worst of Times
October 29, 2009
| Owner and broker panelists yesterday at the Roosevelt Hotel reached a consensus: this market’s not the worst we’ve seen. |
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| We snapped Malkin Holdings’ Tony Malkin, Studley New Vista Associates’ Julien Studley, CB Richard Ellis’ Steve Siegel, Tishman Speyer’s Jerry Cohen, Benenson Capital Partners’ Lawrence Benenson, and SL Green’s Stephen Green at RealShare. Despite opinion difference, they say there’s opportunity. It may not be in distress yet—Jerry says he hasn’t seen any attractive deals and Tishman still hasn’t placed funds it raised two years ago. The leasing market has been in a frenzy since June, Steve notes; rents have bottomed out as pent-up demand takes advantage of the market. But if you’re an owner, you may not see growth until ’12 or ’13, Stephen adds. |
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| Cushman & Wakefield’s Bruce Mosler, Ernst & Young’s Howard Roth, L&L Holding Co.’s David Levinson, Gotham Org.’s David Picket, REBNY’s Steven Spinola, and Herrick, Feinstein’s Carl Schwartz. Coming out of this market, huge amounts of capital will figure out where it’s going and new ownership will emerge, Levinson says, while the landscape will change from entrepreneurial to institutional, Bruce adds. We all expected worse on the job side, Steven continues, but many laid-off employees have started new companies. However, city government must figure out how to keep people here and make NYC more affordable. |
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| Silverstein Properties’ Larry Silverstein discussed arbitration with the Port Authority over the World Trade Center site. The site needs dependability, predictability, and certainty, Larry says—it could be done by ’16 and do for Downtown what Rockefeller Center did for Midtown. The event also included panels on distress, financing, ownership, and a keynote from Tannery Brook Partners’ William Green. |
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| Broad Street Advisors’ Robert Rizzi and Keith Broemmer with Cushman & Wakefield’s John Busi, Ackman-Ziff’s Rick Lechtman, Oritani Bank’s David Garcia, and Cobblestone Advisors’ Bray Kelly. Need money? Dip into David’s pocket—his bank is lending up to approximately $25M, but you should have a multi-tenanted, non-owner occupied stabilized property. Bray reports that he’s dealing with $500M in commercial workouts, while Rick is balancing debt deals, restructurings, and pushing the NYC NAIOP chapter (if you missed Tony Malkin yesterday, he’ll be speaking at the group’s Nov. 11 networking event—Info). |
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| Wells Fargo’s Jeff Schor with Pioneer Acquisitions’ Jayson Lemberg and James Peterson. Jayson and James are sniffing out opportunities in the New York metro market, and find that buying debt is making the most sense. They just purchased debt on a multifamily property in Bristol, Conn. for 35 cents on the dollar, and are finishing the foreclosure process. |
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| Lincoln Equities Group’s Robert Schenkel and Joel Bergstein with Grubb & Ellis’ Yoav Oelsner. If you haven’t been watching the slew of recent exec moves, Yoav and former Cushman & Wakefield colleagues Jon Epstein and Charles Kingsley jumped over to join Grubb’s capital market platform last month, working with middle-market investments trading at or under $100M. The $2.2B trio’s transactions over the past six years included the Plaza Hotel, 530 Broadway, 225 Fifth Ave., 90 West St. and 610 Lexington Ave. |
