Shown (from left) are: Andrew Albstein, Goldberg Weprin & Ustin, LLP; Peter Hauspurg, Eastern Consolidated; Alan Goodkin, Patrick Nessenthaler, and David Robinov, The Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group; Mark Weiss (now of Cushman & Wakefield) with Howard Kesseler and Justin DiMare, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank; Lauren Crowley Corrinet, CBRE, Inc.; John Banks, REBNY president; and Woody Heller, Savills StudleyNew York, NY At the Real Estate Board of New York’s (REBNY) 72nd Annual Commercial Sales Brokers Committee Cocktail Party, held at Club 101 recently, top honors were awarded to seven commercial brokers for their ingenious deals completed in 2015.
The winners of the 2015 Sales Brokers Most Ingenious Deal of the Year Awards were:
• Justin DiMare, Mark Weiss and Howard Kesseler of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, who were honored with the first place Henry Hart Rice Achievement Award for arranging the “Land Swap Between City of NY, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Hunter College” at 525 East 73rd St. This is Mark Weiss’s third time winning a REBNY Ingenious Deal of the Year Award.
• Lauren Crowley Corrinet, Gregory Tosko and Sacha Zarba of CBRE, Inc., who took second place with the Robert T. Lawrence Memorial Award for “An Affair to Remember | The Empire State Building Stays LinkedIn: How CBRE Inspired an Icon to Innovate for Technology’s Most Innovative Company” at 350 Fifth Ave. This is Gregory Tosko’s seventh time winning a REBNY Ingenious Deal of the Year Award.
• Alan Goodkin of The Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group LLC, who was presented with the third prize Edward S. Gordon Memorial Award for arranging construction financing for the “EmblemHealth Building” at 101 Pennsylvania Ave. in East New York, Brooklyn.
“The winners of this year’s competition looked past the easy answers and demonstrated the ingenuity required to find the most beneficial solutions for their clients and the community,” said Woody Heller, chair of REBNY’s Sales Brokers Committee and executive managing director, Group Head of the Capital Transactions Group at Savills Studley. “The impact of their ingenious transactions will be long lasting and have already contributed to the continued growth of the healthcare and tech sectors.”
“Completing such complex transactions as those submitted for our Ingenious Deal of the Year Award competition requires tremendous creativity, professionalism and persistence,” said John Banks, III, REBNY president. “We are proud to honor the best and brightest in our industry and congratulate the winners on their exceptional accomplishments that attest to the depth and importance of their expertise.”
The judges for REBNY’s 2015 Ingenious Deal of the Year Awards competition were: Andrew Albstein, Esq. of Goldberg Weprin & Ustin, LLP, Dov Hertz of Extell Development Co., John Gunther-Mohr of Santander Bank, Peter Hauspurg of Eastern Consolidated, and Woody Heller of Savills Studley. Winners were judged in the categories of sales, leasing and finance.
Justin DiMare, Mark Weiss (now at Cushman & Wakefield), and Howard Kesseler of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank (NGKF), who took home the first place Henry Hart Rice Achievement Award, negotiated an ingenious “win-win-win” land swap among the NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNY), NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and a partnership between Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and Hunter College. The complex, three-part transaction was initiated by NGKF’s proposed monetization and relocation of DSNY’s 525 East 73rd Street, site of a sanitation truck depot demolished in 2008 and intended for the development of a new DSNY garage. Capital funds for the development bore the brunt of the great recession and resulted in stalled construction. The waterfront site successfully changed hands through a Request for Proposals, executed by the EDC, to a strategic partnership that the NGKF team arranged between MSKCC and Hunter College, who in return, provided the necessary capital and ownership of 425 East 25th Street, the site of Hunter College’s out-of-date Brookdale Campus. The five-year assignment resulted in a 1.1 million-square-foot project to develop a new MSKCC hospital and Hunter College nursing school at 525 East 73rd Street, in addition to the EDC’s acquisition of the site at 425 East 25th Street and $215 million in funding for the development of a new DSNY garage.
Lauren Crowley Corrinet, Gregory Tosko and Sacha Zarba of CBRE, Inc., were awarded the second place Robert T. Lawrence emorial Award for their deal, “An Affair to Remember | The Empire State Building Stays LinkedIn: How CBRE Inspired an Icon to Innovate for Technology’s Most Innovative Company.” The team defied all expectations that it would be impossible to find a singular home for tech giant LinkedIn in order to accommodate its steep growth curve and need for a new, amenity-rich environment. While CBRE pursued potential relocation options with LinkedIn, they also studied and proposed how they could make the Empire State Building an attractive, stay option through extensive property modifications, securing an amenity floor, shuttle elevators, terrace space, and enhanced building identity, among other accommodations. Through their forward-looking proposals and negotiations – which culminated in a 126,000-square-foot expansion for LinkedIn’s new vertical campus, designed to draw top talent – the CBRE team fulfilled the tenant’s space and new culture needs, saved LinkedIn capital to invest in their New York growth, and inspired the city’s greatest iconic building to innovate for this leading TAMI tenant, securing one of social media’s marquee brands.
Alan Goodkin of The Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group LLC won the third prize Edward S. Gordon Memorial Award for arranging the $66.5 million first mortgage construction financing for the “EmblemHealth Building,” a 160,000-square-foot medical office building at 101 Pennsylvania Avenue in East New York, Brooklyn. Retained by Jonas Rudofsky to recapitalize the ownership entity and position it to develop the property, Ackman-Ziff identified issues that construction lenders would need addressed including the owner’s lack of liquidity, net worth and ground-up construction experience, in addition to a determination of how much rent would be required from the building’s tenant, EmblemHealth. To combat these challenges, Ackmann-Ziff secured a partner, James Rinzler of Dominion Management, and recommended an unleveraged yield on cost leasing strategy to calculate rent rather than quoting a rental rate. This mitigated cost overruns and challenging rental rate discussions for office construction in an atypical market, resulted in securing 100 percent of cost construction financing, allowed the owner to maintain 50 percent ownership interest, and delivered a state-of-the-art facility to EmblemHealth to serve its policyholders and the East New York community.
Sponsors of the Sales Brokers Committee’s 72nd Annual Deal of the Year Cocktail Party were: Donald Zucker Co., Eastern Consolidated, H.J. Kalikow & Co., Jack Resnick & Sons, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, Rudin Management Co., Tishman Speyer, The Moinian Group, and Vornado Realty Trust.