Dana Rubinstein

Mort Zuckerman and company provided their now typical dose of depressing market predictions this morning during Boston Properties' second quarter earnings call.

Our favorite bleak comment came from President Doug Linde, who, in speaking about the challenges facing the average American consumer, said, "We don't see any immediate catalyst for optimism."

Such artful use of business-speak!

Clearly someone's been spending too much time with Mr. Zuckerman, who has taken to using his public appearances to intone about the dire straits of the American economy (not that his statements are without merit. But sometimes, it's just so damned depressing!).

Anyway, there were some silver linings to the clouds darkening the economic horizon.  read more »

It's a divorce that may soon dwarf the Brinkley-Cook debacle in ugliness.

The banking industry, pressured by regulators to reduce its exposure to the collapsing real estate market, has been squirming out of its loan obligations to developers, killing projects midstream, according to developers quoted in an article in today's Wall Street Journal:

"As lenders rush to curtail their real-estate exposure and preserve sorely needed capital, they are triggering lawsuits from builders that say the banks have unfairly cut off their construction financing, stopped their projects midstream and forced their companies to the brink of bankruptcy.

'Lender-liability lawsuits are coming. It's only just beginning,' says Michael Hackard, a lawyer in Sacramento, Calif.  read more »

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During a June 18 appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Steven Roth, New York real estate kingpin and the chairman and CEO of Vornado Realty Trust, suggested that a President Barack Obama could lead the United States out of its economic imbroglio.

“President Obama comes in, O.K.—that’s not a political prediction by the way, this is just a fantasy—and somehow or other, he does what he says he was going to do. He gets us out of the war,” began Mr. Roth in his heavily inflected New Yorkese.

In Mr. Roth’s imagined course of events—related to a deeply skeptical roundtable of pundits—the future president would use the billions of dollars that aren’t wasted overseas, coupled with increased tax revenues, to pay down the deficit.  read more »

Human hubbub may soon be returning to 200 Fifth Avenue, the so-called Toy Building that once housed dozens of toy makers, but that, aside from four retail tenants, now stands empty.

Landlord L&L Holding Company, which just got legal permission to evict Cipriani, has had a number of prominent visitors lately, according to David Berkey, the firm’s executive vice president.

“Some of the major users mentioned in your July 15 article have been through the building on more than one occasion and expressed definitive interest in joining Grey Global,” Mr. Berkey said, referring to the article in which we listed the handful of firms looking for more than 150,000 square feet in today’s Manhattan market: NBC Universal; HSBC Bank; law firms Fitzpatrick Cella Harper & Scinto, Paul Weiss Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe; and banks Allianz, Natixis, and WestLB.  read more »

Never heard of the Olnicks? Aside from industry insiders, pretty much no one had until July 11, when The New York Times revealed that, amid an affordable housing crisis, Congressman Charles Rangel had been hoarding four rent-stabilized apartments in the Olnick’s Lenox Terrace complex in Harlem.

It may be hard to believe that in a city so consumed with itself, so dedicated to narcissism and self-love, money and power, the Olnicks would shun the spotlight. But do a Nexis search on the family name, and aside from some clips in Real Estate Weekly—which faithfully publishes personnel and small lease announcements—you’ll find nary a hit until this month.  read more »

Leon Charney, a 69-year-old developer and attorney whose colorful career has included stints as President Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy adviser and convicted spy Jonathan Pollard’s lawyer, and who now moderates a public affairs show called The Leon Charney Report, is building a hotel near Bryant Park.

Mr. Charney, who had just returned from China when he spoke with The Observer, said he will replace the five-story office building at 120 West 41st Street—now vacant but for the Simply Pasta restaurant on the ground floor—with a $90 million boutique hotel, which will rise “about” 22 floors and contain a bit more than 100 luxury rooms, a spa and a swimming pool.  read more »

Soon, we'll be as blase about the bad economic news as we were -- oh so recently -- about the good news.

But not yet. On today's downbeat wire, Reuters reports that, "Commercial real estate prices fell 3.5 percent in May, the biggest drop since at least December 2000, as a slowing economy took a toll on property values, Moody's Investors Service said on Monday."

"Commercial real estate prices, as measured by Moody's/REAL Commercial Property Price Index, are down 5.7 percent from a year earlier and 8.8 percent from their peak in October 2007, Moody's said in a report.

May's decline marked three straight months of negative returns for the index, Moody's said in a report."

For more on this dispiriting development, click here.

You'd think that the buyers of $100 million apartments in the stat-warping 15 Central Park West would want something a tad more highbrow--say, a Prada or a Harry Winston--occupying their ground-floor retail espace. Instead, the gilded tenants at the A.M. Stern-designed tower will have a Best Buy, a West Elm, and a JP Morgan Chase Bank.

William Lie and Arthur Zeckendorf, the developers of the building, made the official announcement today, though it was first reported in the New York Post on July 8. According to the release:

In an industry presently experiencing substantial turmoil, the JPMorgan Chase Bank lease represents the largest retail bank branch lease in Manhattan in 2008.  read more »

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Smith Street, Brooklyn's restaurant Mecca, has at long last scored its first boutique hotel, and the hotel's operators sure do know their audience.

Hersha Hospitality's Nu Hotel, at the corner of Smith Street and Atlantic Avenue, hits nearly ever single gruppy note.

Is it eco-friendly? Check. The press release boasts that the hotel has cork flooring, organic linens, and "custom furnishings crafted from FSC-certified, sustainably harvested teak wood."

Is it "Brooklyn" enough? Check. As per the release, "Whimsical references such as stenciled quotes from famous Brooklynites, 'found objects' from local landmarks and other daring local art strive to echo the authentic, confident character of Brooklyn.  read more »

Care for a bitter draught of economic realism to start off your summer weekend?

In his column in today's New York Times, Paul Krugman predicts that the housing market won't begin to emerge from its current slump until at least 2011, and that's because that market will keep slumping for a while. Waiting for a bubble to deflate is the opposite of popping a water balloon -- it takes a while.

And the overall economy? That won't begin its repair until 2010 or later:

It’s true that some prognosticators still expect a “V-shaped” recovery in which the economy springs back rapidly from its slump.  read more »

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Merely a coincidence, or does The New York Times editorial staff foresee an imminent real estate apocalypse?

For the second time this week, The Times has run a story about portable, one-man tents (the better to shelter us when the city comes to resemble Cormac McCarthy's The Road).

Two days ago, the paper's business section reported on the so-called "Mini Motel," a one-man tent complete with air mattress, night light and alarm clock for those unlucky souls marooned at O'Hare with no hotel voucher to temper the inconvenience.

Today, the paper ran a story on the latest technologies in one-man tents -- not for camping inside transit hubs, but for camping outdoors.  read more »

A marvelously polymathic family who lives in perhaps the oldest private home on the Upper West Side plans to sell the property and use the proceeds to create a foundation named after a microbe.

Said microbe, Ochromonas danica, traditionally inhabits Danish bogs, and sometimes the odd laboratory, like the one where landlord Thomas Haines, 74, encountered it back when he was a Ph.D. candidate at Rutgers University. He lovingly calls it a “freak” of an organism, one whose unusual flagellar membrane so sparked his fascination with lipid membranes that he named his dog Danica, his daughter Avril Danica Haines and his property holding company Danica Realty. Now, he plans to call his charitable foundation, which he recently registered with the I.R.S., the Danica Foundation.  read more »

The number of firms looking for at least 150,000 square feet in Manhattan, and the number of buildings that can accommodate them, could more or less now each be counted on one hand. Some contend that the number continues to shrink as the economy worsens. Other’s say there’s always a small universe of big players. Either way, brokers say they find themselves chasing after the same few lookers again and again.

The belle of this dreary ball is probably NBC Universal, which is looking for a place to house its new consolidated business operations center, which will include offices for chief executives like Jeff Zucker; a child-care facility; a conference center; a health care and fitness center; and an employee commissary.

And so when Lynn Calpeter, NBC Universal’s chief financial officer, visited Silverstein Properties’ 7 World Trade Center this month, tongues started wagging, particularly since she’s part of a caravan of muckety-mucks that has passed through the angular tower in recent weeks. Even Mr. Zucker, the president and CEO of NBC Universal, has stopped by.  read more »

Take a look at the latest commercial real estate stats, and maybe you’ll take comfort in the fact that Manhattan’s vacancy rate continues to hold steady at around 7 percent. Maybe you’ll console yourself with soothing thoughts about a tighter than expected market proving all those Chicken Littles wrong.

Or maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll remember that statistics tend to lag behind reality by a number of months. And maybe you’ll remember the shadow space.

You know it’s there. You’ve heard the rumors. Lehman Brothers is said to be shedding space at 1271 and 1301 Avenue of the Americas, and at 399 Park. JPMorgan Chase is said to be shedding at 270 Park Avenue, and at 277 and 237 and 320. There are murmurings about UBS, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, MetLife, Pfizer and Bank of America. Indeed, the financial industry appears to be contemplating bulimia and coughing up space that it only recently acquired. But look at CoStar, the bible of the commercial real estate industry, and the spaces remain mysteriously absent. This is shadow space.  read more »

Today's New York Times article about the increasing frequency of overnight airport stays, and the increasing callousness of airlines toward their marooned passengers, has a fascinating tidbit about something called a Mini Motel:

An unscheduled overnight stay at a German airport inspired one business traveler, Frank Giotto, the president of Fiber Instrument Sales in Oriskany, N.Y., to create the Mini Motel, a one-person tent complete with air mattress, pillow, reading light, alarm clock and pillow...

Asked what airports would think of a tent city of his Mini Motels, Mr. Giotto expressed confidence.

“People sleeping in chairs don’t seem to bother them,” he said.  read more »

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July 22 will mark the latest public showdown over the fate of the Navy Yard's Admirals Row -- the string of old mansions along Brooklyn's Flushing Avenue that has pitted preservationists who extol the homes' dilapidated grandeur against the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation and residents of the Farragut Houses, who support a plan to raze the buildings and erect a much-needed grocery store.

The Brooklyn Paper reports today that a public hearing is scheduled for July 22, and that Councilwoman Letitia James of Clinton Hill has recently adopted a more conciliatory tone, presumably in an effort to reconcile the competing demands of her constituents:

Councilwoman Letitia James now says “some” of the tumbledown, historic houses in the Brooklyn Navy Yard should be saved, though she still supports the city’s plan to tear down the rotting Admirals Row to build a much-needed supermarket.  read more »

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The comparative weakness of the dollar and the tanking American economy, coupled with New York City's international cache, have made New York top dog among American cities in its ability to soak up the international real estate dollars, according to Forbes.

The other cities in the top 10 -- which is based on an annual Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate Survey -- include: 10-Orlando; 9-Phoenix; 8-Las Vegas; 7-Chicago; 6-Boston; 5-Seattle; 4-San Francisco; 3-Los Angeles; and 2-Washington, D.C.

According to the article:  read more »

New York holds the top spot, but not because of the much celebrated pied-à-terre buyers in Manhattan using the weak dollar to buy into pricey neighborhoods, a trend that has flattened out, says Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, a New York appraisal firm.

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Syms -- the family-controlled bargain clothing retailer with a massive and massively ugly white department store on Trinity Place -- admitted to shareholders that it earns more from its real estate holdings than from its clothing sales, yet Marcy Syms, the CEO, continues to insist the company is not a REIT.

Ms. Syms said that the company earned $2 million last year in rent from its property holdings nationwide, yet only a meager $807,000 in net revenue from clothing sales, according to an item in today's Wall Street Journal.

As The Observer reported last week, many shareholders suspect the Syms family, which still owns 57 percent of the company stock, of trying to take the company private again, so it can reap more of the dividends from its growing real estate empire -- which includes a growing assemblage of air rights and properties around its store in the Financial District.  read more »

The souring real estate market hasn't caused brokerages to skimp on the food with which they lure reporters to quarterly breakfasts and luncheons.

At the Cushman & Wakefield breakfast at Michael's last week, the eggs were scrambled to the perfect fluffiness level; the crepes were nearly transparent; and the fruit salad didn't just include the cheap fruit -- there were blackberries and blueberries, too.

Meanwhile, at this afternoon's CB Richard Ellis second-quarter luncheon at the firm's MetLife building offices, the red meat, roasted asparagus and bowtie pasta were bountiful.

The good news was less so.

Howard Fiddle and David Maurer-Hollaender, both vice chairmen at CBRE, said that Manhattan leasing activity is down, but not by much.  read more »

On June 25, as tennis lovers raptly followed the progress of Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, Serena Williams and her sister Venus on the grass courts in England, a separate Wimbledon drama was happening stateside.

That day, JP Morgan Investment Management closed on the purchase of The Wimbledon from P&H Associates. The building, a 28-story, 230-unit apartment complex at 200 East 82nd Street on the Upper East Side, sold for $150 million.

“The credit crunch has taken its toll on the multifamily market in Manhattan over the last year, with very few transactions completed, but the sale of The Wimbledon ─ at such a strong pricing level ─ verifies there is still a market for prominent buildings with strong fundamentals,” said Jubeen Vaghefi, a managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle, in a statement.  read more »

Is James Nelson a Pollyanna?

Mr. Nelson, a partner and managing director at Massey Knakal, believes too much is being made of the tribulations in the city’s sexy, trophy-tower, over-$100 million investment sales market. And too little is being made of the relatively healthy, yet decidedly less glam, more modestly priced market in which his firm specializes.

“As far as the percentage of properties that sell under $100 million is concerned, there are so many more sales,” he said. An obvious, yet oft-overlooked, point.

“Clearly everyone’s been following the Macklowe properties,” Mr. Nelson said, referring to recent trophy-tower transactions that included the record sale of the GM Building.  read more »

The Carlyle Group closed Tuesday on the purchase of an interest in the retail condo at 666 Fifth Avenue, the tower that Kushner Companies bought last year for a then-record $1.8 billion, according to a source familiar with the deal.

The Carlyle Group—the mammoth private-equity group that manages $82.7 billion in 60 funds worldwide and recently, with Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., bought 650 Madison Avenue for $680 million—is buying in partnership with Stanley Chera’s Crown Acquisitions. The 49 percent stake, as reported by Bloomberg News, in the approximately 90,000-square-foot retail portion, which includes a Brooks Brothers and the NBA Store, is valued in the deal at $525 million.  read more »

Under the new leadership of the dashing Billy Macklowe, Macklowe Properties appears to be lumbering ahead with its complicated and complication-ridden Drake Hotel development.

Either that, or Macklowe Properties is busy assembling a more lucrative parcel in the East 50s around Park Avenue to put on the market—Macklowe was reportedly considering selling the mega-site in May, before successfully selling the GM Building to Mort Zuckerman’s Boston Properties for a record-breaking $2.8 billion.

Either way, Audemars Piguet, the sole tenant in 40 East 57th Street, is out. Capping 14 months of negotiations, Macklowe has bought out the remaining 10 years on the Swiss watchmaker’s lease.  read more »

The commercial real estate market must really be wretched. How else to explain Cushman & Wakefield’s midyear breakfast on Tuesday morning when, in Michael’s glassed-in patio, a couple of ballsy brokers erupted with skepticism, calling into question their bosses’ own stats—to those bosses’ faces. In front of the press.

“If I were sitting in the media looking at the stats, I’d think that someone was drinking the Kool-Aid,” said Joshua Kuriloff, a broker at the firm.

Mr. Kuriloff even uttered the R-word (“recession”) to describe the economy—a term that’s verboten among most real estate types, who favor limper nouns like “contraction,” “slowdown” and “downturn.  read more »

Syms is an eerily quiet department store housed in an ugly white building that crouches low on Trinity Place. Most of its windows are bricked up. Its outlandishly nice staff, “educators” in Syms parlance, tend to row after row of neatly hung blazers and pantsuits.

Now and again, in the otherwise silent shop, the disembodied voice of a man calling himself Richard Syms makes an announcement about gift cards. It’s unclear to whom the announcement is directed. The store, at 5 on a Saturday afternoon, is nearly deserted.

Syms, the off-market chain known for its black paper bags proclaiming “An educated consumer is our best customer,” purports to be a retailer.  read more »

The Carlyle Group closed today on the purchase of an interest in the retail condo at 666 Fifth Avenue, the tower that Kushner Companies bought last year for a then-record $1.8 billion, according to a source familiar with the deal.

Carlyle Group -– the mammoth private equity group that manages $82.7 billion in 60 funds worldwide and recently, with Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., bought 650 Madison Avenue for $680 million -- is purchasing this deal in partnership with Stanley Chera's Crown Acquisitions. The 49 percent stake, as reported by Bloomberg News, in the approximately 90,000-square-foot retail portion, which includes a Brooks Brothers and the NBA Store, is valued in the deal at $525 million.  read more »

Ronald Winston, son of the founder of the eponymous Harry Winston jewelers, has sold the firm's flagship building at 718 Fifth Avenue for $62 million, according to city records.

Paramount Group, which made the purchase, is apparently on a shopping spree that would make even Harry proud. Albert Behler's Paramount is apparently snapping up 1301 Avenue of the Americas, the Credit Lyonnais Building, for a staggering $1.5 billion.

Neither Paramount Group's spokeswoman nor the spokesperson for Harry Winston could be reached for comment.

Master mall builder Forest City Ratner and Blumenfeld Development Group have snagged another discount retailer for East River Plaza, the 485,000-square-foot suburban-style mall being developed in East Harlem along the FDR Drive, between 116th and 119th streets.

Marshalls, the discount housewares and clothing store, has committed to taking 33,000 square feet in the mall, according to a press release issued today. It will be the first Marshalls in East Harlem.

A recent article in The New York Times said the mall is slated to open in October 2009.

Some highlights of the $480 million project include an estimated 2,000 jobs (that is, of course, the developer's estimate); a multi-level 1,248-space parking lot; a Target; a Best Buy; and possibly a Home Depot.  read more »

It was Friday afternoon, and William Kelley didn't look dressed for getting down and dirty.

The guy was, frankly, styling, in his blue Ralph Lauren polo, plaid pants and black-framed glasses. The only clue that he’d be spending the next two hours on hands and knees, measuring tree pits and jotting down every dangerous crack, hole, puddle, and spot of graffiti along Union Square East was the enormous metal tape-measure strapped weapon-like to his belt.

Mr. Kelley, director of economic development for the Union Square BID, and his partner Victoria Draper, a Howard University-bound graduate of Washington Irving High School, began their two-hour survey at Galaxy Global Eatery – the vegetarian-friendly diner at the corner of 15th Street and Irving Place that has glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and hawks galaxy-emblazoned rolling paper at the front desk.  read more »

Developers broke ground on the silver-skinned, 65-story tower planned for 50 West Street in Lower Manhattan.

On June 23, New York-based developer Time Equities Inc. marked the occasion with, appropriately enough, an organic breakfast from the local bakery Financier.

Not only was the breakfast-cum-groundbreaking religiously eco-friendly, but it was also religious.

According to the release, "Vicar Anne Mallonee, The Reverand Mark Bozzuti-Jones and Rabbi Schmaya Katz blessed the site and spoke of hospitality, unity and sustainability as they welcomed their new neighbor."

It's all in keeping with the firm's meticulous political correctness. The developers are anticipating that the residential and hotel building will get LEED-gold certification thanks to the incorporation of technologies like a green roof, water-efficient plumbing, automated blinds, and sustainable construction materials.  read more »

Manhattan property investors are in a funk. Their friends at the investment banks have empty pockets or fresh pink slips. Financing for large deals is scarce. And industry heavyweights are for once publicly bearish.

Peter DeCheser, managing director of capital markets for Jones Lang LaSalle, said using the word “somber” to describe the mood “might be euphemistic.”

“We’re in for a slowdown in volume that would almost be comparable to the early ’90s,” Mr. DeCheser said. “It will become much worse. In the next 30 to 60 days, the proverbial second shoe will drop.”

Normally, getting a real estate type to say something negative about the Manhattan investment-sales market is like eliciting an intelligent comment from Kelly Ripa: damn near impossible.  read more »

Location: How’s the capital market doing?

Mr. Herzka: If you’re talking about the Wall Street type of funding, that’s pretty much nonexistent.

Where’s the financing coming from?

From a lot of the commercial banks, large savings banks, life insurance companies, a consortium of banks funding larger deals, and of course the agencies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

And what kind of financing do you do?

Meridian actually specializes in all income-producing properties, whether it’s multi-family, retail, industrial or office. You’re sitting here with David Rosenberg, who heads up the capital markets group. And Ronnie Levine, who heads up the structured [financing] and construction group.  read more »

Here she is -- the scaled-down, more contextually appropriate design for the New Domino residential development, which got the official stamp of approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission this morning.

Unlike the former, more controversial plan, this one preserves the iconic Domino Sugar sign, better hides the mechanicals, and adds fewer floors on top of the landmarked old factory.

The New Domino is a mixed-use development, slated to have 2,200 residential units, 30 percent of which are supposed to be affordable, along with approximately 220,000 square feet of new retail, commercial and community cultural facility space.

But Michael Lappin, the CEO of CPC Resources, which is developing the project with the Katan group, warned that the 20,000-square-foot reduction in size may endanger some of those affordable units:

“The new design incorporates many of the suggestions of Landmarks commissioners, and we believe it reflects the highest quality of thoughtful, creative restoration as interpreted by our preservation architects, Beyer Blinder Belle," Mr.  read more »

Jack Guttman this week cemented his place atop what is perhaps New York City’s largest fine-arts storage and moving company with the purchase of two loft buildings on West 55th Street for $45 million.

Mr. Guttman, who made clear he’s unrelated to the Brooklyn Guttmans (think suspicious fires), has been in the self-storage business for 15 years as head of American Self Storage. He made his first foray into the arts in 2006 with his Chelsea Arts Tower commercial condominiums. But it was just this January that he moved into the immensely sensitive realm of high-art moving and storage when he purchased Hayes Storage (both the business and the building at 305 East 61st Street) for about $30 million.  read more »

Is the $200-a-square-foot office space in trophy towers the new $12 dollar movie ticket—a galling, nerve-grating development that a mere 12 months later becomes the widely accepted paradigm?

At 9 West 57th Street—the stylish Sheldon Solow tower on Fifth Avenue—three firms have recently signed leases at more than $200 a foot, according to a source familiar with the transactions. The source insisted this was “not a story. You’ll start to see that number at the GM Building.”

In a way, that source is right. Rumors of prices like this surface now and again.

And it’s not as though we’re talking Class B space here.  read more »

How do we know we’re living in a second Gilded Age? Even as the economy tanks and a record number of small businesses declare bankruptcy, asking rents in the city’s trophy towers continue to float higher and higher into the stratosphere, untethered by such petty concerns as price, according to Jones Lang LaSalle’s until now unreleased 2008 Skyline Review.

In these so-called trophy buildings—midtown towers like One Bryant Park and the GM Building—average asking rents increased 3 percent from the fall of 2007, reaching $122.93 a square foot.

In the past year, asking rents in these upper-crust towers have increased 18 percent from $104.  read more »

It's a trend! Pfizer wants to sublease 750,000 square feet of office space, according to a report today in Crain's New York Business, joining a growing set of firms seeking to shed excess space in the slumping economy:

"The Royal Bank of Scotland is marketing about 140,000 square feet at 7 World Trade Center that it inherited when it bought ABN Amro. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.’s purchase of Bear Stearns Cos. is also expected to put hundreds of thousands of square feet on the market. In addition, sources say Lehman Brothers is also trying to unload 400,000 square feet of space.

"Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs is preparing to sublease about 500,000 square feet at 77 Water St.  read more »

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Location: Have you been better protected from this credit crunch because you sell buildings in the below-$100 million market?

Mr. Knakal: Clearly, the market for buildings over $100 million is much slower than the market for buildings under $100 million, mainly because of the availability of credit. … To the extent you’re looking for a nine-figure loan on an acquisition, that’s very challenging to find, mainly because most of those loans were provided by [commercial-mortgage-backed securities] lenders that are no longer active.

How have your sales been affected?

Our number of transactions is off by about 21 percent compared to 2007.  read more »

Federal bankruptcy filings are up 322 percent citywide compared to the same period last year, according to a report in Crain's New York, not the most promising of trends amid this year's economic turmoil.

According to the article, there were 335 bankruptcy filings in New York City, in comparison to 104 in the same period last year.  read more »

In the wake of his father Harry's near disastrous over-leveraging of the family business, Billy Macklowe has officially been named Macklowe Properties' new chairman and CEO. He has been working with his father since 1992, after a stint as a real estate finance analyst for Manufactures Hanover.

His father Harry has been named Chairman Emeritus of the firm.

The father and son were said to have a fractious relationship, which, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, was made worse by Macklowe Properties' credit crisis woes. The tension between the two is said to have helped precipitate this change in the ranks.  read more »

The GM Building, the tower that Mort Zuckerman's Boston Properties this week closed on for a record-breaking $2.8 billion, may no longer be known as the GM Building.

Just minutes ago, in a Boston Properties investors conference call to discuss the acquisition, president Douglas Linde said the GM Building's name may officially change, since General Motors -- which moved its headquarters there 40 years ago --is moving its remaining three floors, more than 100,000 square feet, from the marble tower to the Citigroup Center, another Boston Properties tower, also in Midtown.  read more »

NBC visited 7 World Trade Center on June 2, the most recent of more than one visit to Larry Silverstein’s gleaming downtown tower, whose top 10 floors are still available for lease. Sources say NBC was considering housing its new business operations center there.

“NBC has been back to 7 World Trade Center a number of times, with executives and different division heads poring over the building,” said a real estate insider, who, on a recent visit to the building, saw NBC representatives looking like “cats who swallowed the canary.”

Those “executives” included Jeff Zucker, the president and CEO of NBC Universal, according to another source.

A Silverstein spokesman said he would “not comment on nor confirm discussions with potential tenants.” But another broker familiar with NBC’s plans said the media giant has since moved on from 7 World Trade, and is now looking at SJP Properties’ under-construction 11 Times Square and properties along Eighth Avenue.  read more »