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Manhattan, NY According to RIPCO Real Estate, Hotel Chocolat, a British-based chocolatier and cocoa grower, is expanding its presence to the U.S. via a 1,065 s/f lease at 441 Lexington Ave., between 44th and 45th Sts. The chocolatier’s stateside location opened December 10, 2018 and has a café component where customers will be able to sample a variety of chocolates. RIPCO’s Beth Rosen, executive vice president and Emily Simmonds, director, represented the landlord. Hotel Chocolat represented themselves.

Brooklyn, NY TF Cornerstone has signed two retail leases totaling 2,587 s/f at the base of 33 Bond St., a 714-unit residential rental building located at the crossroads of Downtown Brooklyn, Boerum Hill and Fort Greene. Neighborhood Cut and Shave, a barber shop and grooming concept with three New York City locations, leased 801 s/f of ground-floor space in the building, and Burger Village, a Long Island-based organic burger restaurant with three locations in Brooklyn, Great Neck and Hicksville, signed a lease for 1,786 s/f. Winick Realty Group represented TF Cornerstone in the leases.

New York, NY Project Real Estate Associate Program (REAP), the nation’s leading diversity initiative building bridges between talented multicultural professionals and commercial real estate (CRE) for 20 years, is returning to NYC and Washington, D.C., for the spring semester starting the first week of March 2019. 

Brooklyn, NY According to the owners of Hoyt & Horn, Benenson Capital Partners and Rose Associates, Starbucks signed a 2,050 s/f, 10-year lease at the building. The space is at street level of the rental property that is located at 45 Hoyt St., on the corner of Hoyt and Schermerhorn Sts. Bruce Spiegel, senior managing director of Rose Associates, represented building ownership. Diana Boutross, executive managing director of Cushman & Wakefield, represented Starbucks. Hoyt & Horn is a 368-unit, 26-story residential property that opened in March of this year and was fully leased by September. 

Manhattan, NY Klosed Properties has acquired the retail condominium at 2082 Frederick Douglass Blvd. The property is an 860 s/f retail condominium, located in West Harlem. The property is long-term leased to 87 Orange Street Bar & Restaurant. Steven Kachanian, principal at Klosed Properties, said,“Even when most investors are running away from retail assets, we capitalize on opportunities as long as they are properly priced, well located, and have future upside potential. We finalized this acquisition within hours from our first inspection.”

Brooklyn, NY According to Brookfield Properties, London-based restaurant chain Pret A Manger will open its first Brooklyn location at 2 MetroTech Center. Pret A Manger will take 2,700 s/f, with the location set to open in early spring, creating a new lunch option for the many workers and visitors at MetroTech. Founded in London in 1986, Pret A Manger (“Ready to Eat”) is a sandwich and organic coffee shop offering hot breakfast sandwiches and frittatas, soups, salads, sandwiches and wraps made in-shop each day using carefully sourced ingredients. Pret donates their unsold food to food rescue organizations every night. Pret currently has over 500 shops in nine countries with 91 locations in New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, Newport, New Jersey and Boston. 

A very long time in the making, Hudson Yards is a project taking form in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. Thought up in the early 2000’s, the project broke ground in 2006 and for the past 13 years the eyes of Chelsea, Manhattan and the rest of the world have been focused on the once forgotten, vast, far-west part of Chelsea being redeveloped through this enormous undertaking. The dreaming up and execution of Hudson Yards involves renowned developers, architects, government offices and retailers, all part of an extensive list of the project’s stakeholders.

Not many – if any – things in life remain exactly the same for long.  Consider that statement in the context of real estate. What happens to a piece of real estate over several decades? Of course, without proper maintenance, the property would severely change in appearance and functionality. Certainly property values change from year to year, but over several decades, it’s possible the values increase many fold. How about a legal requirement that remains exactly the same for almost five decades? What if that legal requirement was permanently fastened to the value of real estate in 1973; and effectively precluded you from challenging the city assessor’s annual real estate tax guesstimate?  What you have is a not so warm welcome to New York City tax certiorari.

When looking at primary real estate markets such as New York City and San Francisco, investors with limited experience in these markets usually comment on their inability to get comfortable with the low capitalization rates relative to secondary or tertiary markets. The main reason for this dichotomy in capitalization rates is due to the value of the land relative to the total value of the real estate, and a real estate investor looking to gain a comfort with primary markets needs to fully understand the factors that influence the value of land. A real estate investor looking to gain a comfort level with primary markets needs to fully understand the factors that influence the value of land.

The NYS Self Storage Association (NYSSA), in partnership with the National Self Storage Association, held its 12th Annual Investment Forum this past week at the Union League Club in New York City. This is a national self storage Conference intended for the real estate and capital markets professionals from across the nation as principals or resources serving our industry. Keynote address was given by Calvin Schnure, senior vice president of research at NAREIT, to a sell out audience. Talonvest Capital updated attendees on the changes occurring in both the debt and equity markets with their guest speakers from StorQuest Storage, Metro Self Storage and Christian Sonne, chief appraiser at CBRE’s self storage division. 

Manhattan’s real estate investment market was a mixed-bag last year and there are concerns that rising interest rates and changes to rent regulation may have the potential to suppress activity in 2019. A look back at Manhattan’s investment sales activity in 2018 shows that investors were already anticipating these market shifts; yet total sales volume and pricing remained rather stable compared to 2017. Investors will continue to be active this year as Manhattan will continue to prove to be one of the stronger markets for both national and international buyers. 

New York, NY According to developer Silverstein Properties, Brian Collins will join the firm as EVP and director of development. “Brian has a long and successful history in the real estate industry and we look forward to working with him in the New Year,” said Larry  Silverstein, chairman of Silverstein. “We have several billion dollars of development activity in the pipeline and I’m very excited for the future of our company.”

Brooklyn, NY Greystone has provided a total of $11.727 million in Fannie Mae loans to refinance a portfolio of multifamily properties. The loans were originated by Anthony Cristi in Greystone’s New York office on behalf of Zalmen Wagschal. The four separate Fannie Mae loans, closed in under two weeks from the application date, are all seven-year Hybrid Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs), secured to refinance the following properties comprising 6-12 units in the Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods:

Bronx, NY KeyBank Community Development Lending and Investment (CDLI) closed $24.5 million in total financing for the Gilbane Development Company’s acquisition and renovation of two New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) properties, Highbridge Franklin and Twin Parks West, to preserve 647 units of permanent affordable housing. Both properties are part of NYCHA’s plan to finance, renovate and manage 1,700 apartment units across 17 developments under its Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) program. PACT is New York City’s implementation of the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program.

New York, NY According to Edward Howe III, managing director of National Cooperative Bank (NCB), the bank has originated over $54 million in new loans for 23 N.Y. area housing cooperatives.   Mindy Goldstein, senior VP, originated $26.8 million, including the largest loan of the month, a $5.5 million first mortgage and $500,000 line of credit for Tudor Woods, Inc., a 148-unit co-op at 76-98 DeHaven Dr., Yonkers. Other financings included:

New York, NY GCP Capital Group LLC has arranged mortgage financing totaling $67.94 million for the following nine deals: • $20.3 million for a five-story mixed-use building containing 60 apartments and 4,550 s/f of commercial space in the East Village section of Manhattan. Paul Greenbaum, managing member of GCP, arranged the financing. • $12.5 million for three five-story multifamily apartment buildings containing 36 units and 5,200 s/f of commercial space on West 42nd St. in Manhattan. Adam Brostovski, principal of GCP, arranged the financing.

Brooklyn, NY Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, L.P. (HFF) has completed $32 million in financing for Caesura, a newly completed, 123-unit residential building with ground-floor retail in the borough’s Cultural District. The HFF team worked on behalf of the borrower, Jonathan Rose Companies, LLC, to place the 10-year, fixed-rate loan with Allegiant Real Estate Capital LP. Loan proceeds were used to replace the existing construction loan.

New York, NY Arbor Realty Trust, Inc. has funded two loans totaling $4.8 million in the New York City area.  The first loan was for 401 E. 136th St., Bronx. This nine-unit multifamily property received $1.8 million in refinance funding through the Freddie Mac SBL program. The deal provides a five-year hybrid term and a 30-year amortization schedule. Ari Short of Arbor’s New York City office originated the loan. 

Manhattan, NY JLL Capital Markets has arranged a $95 million loan for the acquisition and repositioning of three office buildings — 580 Eighth Ave., 251 West 39th St. and 36 East 20th St. — for East End Capital and a private family office, and also arranged the partnership of the two firms. The loan was provided by LoanCore Capital. Aaron Appel, vice chairman; Jonathan Schwartz, managing director; Mark Fisher, executive vice president; Matt Collins, associate; Patrick Cotter, analyst, led the JLL Capital Markets team handling the debt assignment. The property owner was represented by Doug Heitner, Sara Ho and Isaac Stern at Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP.