NEW YORK CITY — Moroccanoil has signed a 39,799-square-foot office lease at 1185 Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan. The cosmetics company will occupy part of the 32nd and all of the 33rd floor at the 42-story building. Deborah Van Der Heyden, Yarden Drimmer, Tamar Wartanian and Andrew Chase of Cushman & Wakefield represented the tenant in the lease negotiations. Brian Waterman, John Fanuzzi, Brent Ozarowski, David Waterman and Kevin Sullivan of Newmark represented the landlord, SL Green.
BOHEMIA, N.Y. — Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace has opened a 39,000-square-foot store in the Long Island community of Bohemia. The caterer and provider of Italian food and shopping experiences has backfilled a former Babies ‘R’ Us space at Sayville Plaza. Robert Delavale of Breslin Realty represented the landlord in the lease negotiations on an internal basis.
NEW YORK CITY — A partnership between New York City-based Waterman Interests and alternative asset management firm HPS Investment Partners has begun the renovation of 850 Third Avenue, a 605,000-square-foot office building in Midtown Manhattan. Renovations to the 21-story building, which was originally constructed in 1961, will include an expanded lobby with contemporary finishes and a 14,000-square-foot conference and social center with 200-seat capacity. In addition, the project team, led by design firms MdeAS Architecture and Vocon, as well as general contractor Turner Construction and mechanical engineer Cosentini Associates, will deliver new elevators, windows, storefronts and building systems. A tentative completion date was not announced.
MIDDLETOWN, N.Y. — New Jersey-based financial intermediary Cronheim Mortgage has arranged an $18 million permanent loan for the Residence Inn Middletown Goshen hotel in Middletown, about 75 miles north of New York City. The number of rooms was not disclosed. The hotel opened in 2020. The loan carries a five-year term and a fixed interest rate. The borrower and direct lender were also not disclosed.
QUEENSBURY, N.Y. — Regional brokerage firm Adirondack Capital Partners has negotiated the sale of Whispering Pines Apartments, a 189-unit multifamily complex in Queensbury, located north of Albany. Built in 1980, the garden-style property offers one- and two-bedroom units and amenities such as a pool, tennis courts, fitness center and onsite laundry facilities. Adirondack represented the buyer, Dawn Homes Management, in the transaction. Parker Stevens of Eastdil Secured represented the seller.
NEW YORK CITY — A partnership between William Macklowe Co. and GreenBarn Investment Group has completed the lease-up of a 49-unit apartment building in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn. Designed by SLCE Architects with interiors by Durukan Design, the four-story building is part of the Paseo on Fifth development, which comprises 131 units across two buildings. Residences at Paseo on Fifth come in studio, one- and two-bedroom floor plans. Rents start at roughly $3,200 per month for a studio apartment.
NEW YORK CITY — Sigma Computing Inc. has signed an 11-year, 28,286-square-foot office lease expansion in Midtown Manhattan. The AI-driven software company now occupies 92,363 square feet, including the entire third floor, at One Madison Avenue. Brent Ozarowski, Jeffrey Rodgers and Stephen Cisarik of Newmark represented the tenant in the lease negotiations. Paul Glickman, Alexander Chudnoff, Ben Bass and Diana Biasotti of JLL represented the landlord, SL Green.
By Joel Marcus, senior partner, Marcus & Pollack LLP COVID-19 and the government-ordered shutdown had immediate negative consequences for all types of real estate, and New York City’s tax valuations took this into account. Damage from the pandemic still weighs down property values today, compounded by cultural shifts that sapped demand for commercial properties. Fair market values have evolved to reflect pervasive vacancy, building obsolescence and the heightened cost of serving tenants that have abundant alternatives to choose from. At the same time, work-from-home practices reduce space requirements. Retailers, restaurants and hotels see half the foot traffic they once had from nearby office buildings, adding to ongoing pressure from e-commerce and other challenges to create excess vacancy, constrained rental streams and declining market values. Valuation for property taxation has not evolved, however, judging by the revaluation tax assessments the city’s Department of Finance is issuing. Revaluations ostensibly update taxable property values to current fair market value. Yet New York’s assessors habitually inflate valuations by applying pre-pandemic rental rates and vacancy assumptions, ignoring the rents landlords are actually collecting today and turning a blind eye to fundamental changes in demand for commercial space. Old thinking persists among these assessors, and it …
NEW YORK CITY — A partnership between locally based investment firm Olmstead Properties and Vertex, a newly launched platform, has purchased two office buildings in Manhattan’s Flatiron District for $104 million. The buildings are located at 373 and 381 Park Avenue S., which rise 12 and 17 stories and total 112,000 and 244,000 square feet, respectively. The seller was ATCO Properties & Management. Adam Spies, Adam Doneger, Josh King, Marcella Fasulo and Meaghan Philbin of Newmark brokered the transaction. The new ownership plans to implement capital improvements and has tapped COOKFOX Architects to lead the design.
NEW YORK CITY — JLL has brokered the $58.8 million sale of a multifamily development site in the Gowanus area of Brooklyn. The 38,500-square-foot site at 563 Sackett St. lies within a Qualified Opportunity Zone and can support approximately 258,600 buildable square feet. A 12-story, 350-unit development with other commercial uses is planned for the site. Michael Mazzara, Ethan Stanton and Brendan Maddigan of JLL represented the seller, the Mazzei Family, in the transaction and procured the buyer, Brooklyn developer Fulltime Management.