News
VIEW FROM THE TOP
March 9, 2011
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| How can your firm get a 50-foot long, 20-foot high backlit sign on a skyscraper announcing your presence? Ask Proskauer Rose real estate co-chair Ron Sernau, who did just that, repping his firm in its recent move to Eleven Times Square. (Legal Bisnow snapped this panorama at the building just after last week’s all-star Evolution of Times Square and the West Side event, which featured Ron.) With the economy heating up, he tells us pent-up demand is causing leasing activity to soar. Since mid-January, he’s been involved in more lease deals than in the previous six months, including the one that relocated Proskauer from 1585 Broadway—it had maxed out its space and figured it would be growing over the next 20 years. |
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| Ron, with Africa-Israel USA general counsel and managing director of business affairs Laurie Golub and SJP Properties head honchoSteve Pozycki, discussed his new space at our event. When it came time to negotiate the lease, Ron was already a step ahead— he’d actually drafted the form of the lease while repping SJP Properties as landlord in preparations for its leasing program. The switcheroo may have been a little awkward at first, but he says it worked out fine. Rent figures are confidential, but the 20-year, 400k SF lease is thelargest investment the firm’s ever made, he said. Though Ron’s been known to boast of having no fun since the late ‘80s, we know that’s not true. He just picked up some PVC pipe and a peephole door viewer from Home Depot to help his 13-year-old son rig up afisheye lens for homemade skateboarding videos. |
