NEW YORK CITY — Law firm Katsky Korins LLP has extended its 19,871-square-foot office lease at 605 Third Avenue, a 1.1 million-square-foot office building in Midtown Manhattan. Under the terms of the lease extension, the firm will remain in its space through mid-2032. The company has been a tenant of the building since 1988 and occupies the entire 17th floor. Oliver Katcher of Indigo Property Holdings LLC represented Katsy Korins in the lease negotiations. Marc Packman and Clark Briffel represented the landlord, Fisher Brothers, on an internal basis.
MONTVALE, N.J. — Katz & Associates has secured a 3,699-square-foot retail lease for breakfast restaurant First Watch at The Shoppes at DePiero Farm, a 231,000-square-foot retail center in Montvale, a northwestern suburb of New York City. A 128,000-square-foot Wegmans grocery store anchors the property, along with a Starbucks, Wind Wellness and other tenants. Hugh Scullin and Amy Staats of Katz & Associates represented First Watch in the lease negotiations. Brian Silbert of Silbert Management represented the landlord, The S.Hekemian Group.
NEW YORK CITY — Marcus & Millichap has brokered the $33 million sale of a residential development site in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. The site comprises three former industrial and residential buildings on the same block, located at 118 Hope St., 428 Rodney St. and 426 Rodney St. The buyer, local developer CW Realty, plans to redevelop the property with 100 multifamily units. Said Boukhalfa and Jonathan Codorniu of Marcus & Millichap represented CW Realty in the transaction. The team also represented the sellers, which were private owner-users.
NEW YORK CITY — Greystone, a New York City-based lending and advisory company, has formed a joint venture with Rittenhouse Realty Advisors, a Philadelphia-based advisory group. The joint venture is called Greystone Rittenhouse Realty Advisors, which includes a total of seven sales and debt advisors. The purpose of the joint venture is to provide disposition, refinancing, acquisition and bridge financing to multifamily clients in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions. Jim McDevitt is the president of the joint venture. Ken Weller and Corey Lonberger lead the Rittenhouse Realty Advisors team.
WILMINGTON, DEL. — Business security firm Corporation Service Co. (CSC) has acquired the 43,000-square-foot PA Railroad office building in Wilmington, a southwestern suburb of Philadelphia, for $4.8 million. Located at 112 S. French St., the six-story building is situated adjacent to the Wilmington train station served by Amtrak and Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. The building will be rebranded as CSC Station and will be repositioned to include a new two-story atrium, coworking space and traditional office space. Renovations are slated for completion this fall. Summit Properties Inc. was the seller.
MILFORD, CONN. — Angel Commercial LLC has arranged the $4.2 million sale of a 40,809-square-foot industrial property in Milford, a western suburb of New Haven. Located at 230 Old Gate Lane, the property offers immediate access to Interstate 95. The buyer, 230 Old Gate Lane LLC, plans to redevelop the property as a truck dealership. Jon Angel of Angel Commercial LLC represented 230 Old Gate Lane LLC in the transaction. Angel also represented the seller, CLS Milford LLC.
NEW YORK CITY — E4H Architecture, a firm which designs hospitals and other medical health facilities, has signed a 10,156-square-foot office lease expansion for its office in the Garment District of Manhattan. The firm signed a 10-year lease for the entire sixth floor of an office building located at 15 W. 37th St. The firm will move its operations from its original 5,700-square-foot space on the 16th floor of the same building in the second quarter of this year. Norman Bobrow and David Badner of Norman Bobrow & Co. represented E4H in the lease negotiations. Jarad Winter, J.D. Cohen, William Cohen and Steven Levy of Newmark Knight Frank represented the landlord, Kamber Management.
Manhattan has long been one of the most competitive retail markets in the country due to two characteristics of its population: an incredible density and high incomes among residents and workers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the average weekly wage of Manhattan’s private sector workforce was $3,153 in the first quarter of 2019, much higher than the national average of $1,184 per week. In addition to its residential base, tourism plays a strong role in Manhattan’s retail sales. Marketing agency NYC & Co. projects that New York City will host 67 million visitors this year, up from approximately 65 million in 2018. While these demographic factors have kept Manhattan’s brick-and-mortar retail market somewhat insulated from e-commerce and other factors affecting the industry, the borough has not been completely shielded from the woes affecting the retail industry. Pocket-sized technology offers immediate access to everything from groceries and apparel to cars and construction materials, forcing brick-and-mortar retailers to get creative with their shopping experiences in order to avoid closing stores. Manhattan remains a top-tier market that commands rents above the national average. But the net result of e-commerce and asking rents that don’t match operating costs is a shift in …
NEW YORK CITY — Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) has unveiled plans to close 125 of its least productive stores over the next three years. The retailer will also close its offices in San Francisco, downtown Cincinnati and Lorain, Ohio, leaving the New York City office as the sole corporate headquarters. The reorganization strategy also includes increasing the Macy’s digital platform, while optimizing its brick-and-mortar portfolio and lowering overhead costs. Beginning this year, Macy’s expects the strategy to generate annual gross savings of approximately $1.5 billion, to be fully realized by year-end 2022. “We will focus our resources on the healthy parts of our business, directly address the unhealthy parts of the business and explore new revenue streams,” says Jeff Gennette, chairman and CEO of Macy’s. “Over the past three years, we have shown we can grow the top line; however, we have significant work to do to improve the bottom line.” The 125 stores that Macy’s plans to close account for approximately $1.4 billion in annual sales and one-fifth of its store footprint. Thirty of the stores are in the process of closure now. Steve Horwitz, a professor in the Miller College of Business at Ball State University in Muncie, …
Technology and data are here to make things easier, faster and more accurate than ever before. However, some industries have lagged behind. This inspired Walker & Dunlop and its data science partner, GeoPhy, to fulfill a need in the market related to multifamily valuation. “We built Apprise because we saw a significant opportunity to improve a critical part of the underwriting and valuation process that has largely gone unchanged for decades,” says Brad Savage, Chief Product Officer for Apprise by Walker & Dunlop. “It is the natural and needed progression of any industry to harness the power of technology to make its practitioners more efficient and more informed. This is something we’re seeing in nearly all industries, except commercial real estate valuation…until now.” Apprise by Walker & Dunlop integrates data feeds and business processes that cover 80 percent of the steps in the traditional appraisal process. This can often result in appraisals in five days or less, compared to up to three weeks for traditional reports. The process is powered by GeoPhy’s Automated Valuation Model (AVM), which automates data feeds and can pre-populate relevant fields, preventing errors or duplicate entries that can happen with manual submissions. Selection bias is also reduced with the …