Brookfield Properties

Brookfield Properties, which, along with its holdings in Canada and across the States, owns the World Financial Center downtown and is developing two sleek skyscrapers on Ninth Avenue, held its third quarter earnings conference call this morning.

While there was plenty of talk about the impact of Hurricane Ike on its Southwestern holdings and its massive lease transaction with Petro-Canada in Calgary, the topic likely most on New Yorkers' minds is the status of Merrill Lynch's 4.2 million-square-foot headquarters at World Financial Center. The firm was recently bought by Bank of America, which, along with the Durst Organization, just completed its new headquarters at One Bryant Park.

The phone call did little to sate anyone's curiosity.  read more »

Brookfield Properties has yet to begin "substantial" construction of a platform necessary to construct its two planned Ninth Avenue skyscrapers, despite earlier statements that the work would begin this past summer, according to Real Estate Weekly.

In February, Brookfield, led by hunky CEO Ric Clark, said work would begin on the platform over the railyard in June, according to The New York Times:

"Despite a flagging economy, Brookfield Properties says it will start work in June on a $600 million platform over railroad tracks near Ninth Avenue, where it plans to build two towering office buildings."

The railyard comprises half of Brookfield's five-acre lot, bounded by Ninth and Dyer avenues, 31st and 33rd streets.  read more »

Brookfield Properties, Merrill Lynch's landlord at the World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan, took a beating yesterday in public trading. According to the Wall Street Journal, Brookfield's stock plummeted 18 percent to $17.40 a share by 4 p.m. Monday.

Big news on multiple fronts thanks to a very complicated transaction just completed by CB Richard Ellis.

Arch Insurance Company, which CBRE just announced is consolidating its back-office operations in Jersey City, moving 300 employees to 107,000 square feet in Mack-Cali Realty Corp.'s Harborside Financial Center, is releasing space in midtown Manhattan and in the Financial District to an investment banking firm founded by the former head of UBS, and to Cleary Gottlieb, the white-shoe law firm.

Arch Insurance has subleased 30,000 square feet at 245 Park Avenue to Moelis & Co., former UBS Investment Bank president Kenneth Moelis' eponymous new firm that is, as CBRE broker Mark Ravesloot put it, "bursting at the seams" in its current space.  read more »

One of the remaining bidders for the West Side rail yards, a team of the Durst Organizaiton and Vornado Realty Trust, said it is expecting that S.I. Newhouse’s Condé Nast will remain part of its bid as an anchor tenant.

“We expect that Condé would be our partner,” said Durst spokesman Jordan Barowitz.

However, Condé, which began a new search for space after Tishman Speyer was named the winner over the Durst/Vornado team in March, did not make clear its plans, as a company spokeswoman, Maury Perl, declined comment.  read more »

Revised bids for the West Side rail yards were due today, and Brookfield Properties did not submit a response, leaving four of the city’s biggest developers in a battle for control of the 26-acre site west of Pennsylvania Station.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the site, put out a statement a few minutes ago saying that the agency had received four revised proposals, with no bid from Brookfield. The timeline, which puts selection of a developer in April, remains the same, the MTA said.  read more »

Brookfield Properties seems to like the architectural veterans over at Skidmore Owings and Merrill these days. Brookfield brought on the longtime firm to design its two signature towers in its bid for the West Side rail yards, and now the mega-office landlord has released an SOM-designed rendering for two office towers on a superblock to the east, bounded by 31st and 33rd streets, and Ninth and 10th Avenues (which are rather reminiscent of the designs for the rail yards to the east). The site currently opens to rail tracks that lead into Pennsylvania Station.

The Times’ Charles Bagli had a piece today on Brookfield’s development, and while the print edition had a small rendering, the online version went without it. Accordingly, I called over to the folks at Brookfield, and they gave us the pretty picture to the right.  read more »

Brookfield Properties seems to be moving along with a renewal with Merrill Lynch at the World Financial Center, which, at least as of last month was likely to mean a five-year lease. On a conference call with investors today, a Brookfield executive said the company was in “active and productive discussions with Merrill,” though didn’t expand beyond that.  read more »

Crain's reports that Goldman Sachs has extended its lease of 517,000 square feet at Brookfield Properties' One New York Plaza for 15 months as it awaits the completion of its new headquarters on West Street in Lower Manhattan. The headquarters is supposed to be done by late 2009.

Wall Street Journal architect critic Ada Louise Huxtable likes the West Side rail yard bids of Brookfield Properties and Extell Development Corporation. In general, Ms. Huxtable doesn't like any of the five bids, but those of Brookfield and Extell at least, she writes, "are worth talking about."  read more »

Any good development firm worth its salt has got to have a former City Hall staffer or two on hand to navigate the bureaucracy. Last month, Brookfield Properties sent its latest government hire, Joshua Sirefman, into a meeting to help present the company’s multi-billion dollar plan for the West Side rail yards to a joint city-Metropolitan Transportation Authority selection committee.  read more »

Ric Clark, president and CEO of Brookfield Properties, sat down last week with The Observer to expound on topics such as Merrill Lynch possibly moving out of Brookfield's World Financial Center and the firm's plans to develop a superblock along Ninth Avenue.

We'll have the complete interview in Wednesday's paper, but here's Mr. Clark talking about Brookfield's bid for the West Side rail yards. His firm is up against five others for the biggest slice of undeveloped Manhattan in many years.

About the bids for the West Side yards—How did you approach designing the future of this 26-acre site?  read more »

Blog Curbed has the results of its poll last week on the five bids to develop the West Side rail yards. Brookfield Properties' bid (partly rendered above) won with over 40 percent of the nearly 4,000 votes.

The Observer's Matthew Schuerman reported last week that Brookfield's bid had emerged as a crowd favorite, including among those who visited the midtown exhibit showing all five.

...[J]udging from the early reaction among visitors to the exhibit space, Brookfield has also gained a lot of fans, both via online message boards and among visitors to the exhibit, for a plan that they say looks the most like the rest of New York.

Brookfield's early popularity with the masses is no guarantee it will get to build on the 26-acre site. The site's owner, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has the final say within the next few months, along with input from the Bloomberg administration.

The Observer will have an interview with Brookfield's chief executive Ric Clark in Wednesday's paper.

Just juddging from the early reaction among visitors to the exhibit space.  read more »

Brookfield Properties, a giant landlord that keeps a lower profile than some of the city’s single-engine developers, did not come into the West Side Rail Yards competition with an anchor tenant. It did, however, come in with a whole bevy of design firms—seven in all—that proceeded to break just about every rule or convention that was set out for them.

The result is a plan that—forgive the hypothetical—Jane Jacobs would like (online here). It reinstitutes part of the street grid on the two massive superblocks between 30th and 33rd streets. Hotels create a street wall along 11th Avenue where other plans prescribe a park. The intent, according to Brookfield, is to link the new neighborhood with the rest of the city—including with a parcel Brookfield is developing on the eastern side of 10th Avenue.  read more »