As seen in the February 7th, 2012 issue of The Commercial Observer:

Exceeding Expectations:
MHP Ad in The Commercial Observer

We are please to announce that our 2011 Brokerage Income increased 36% over the previous year, 82% of which was produced through Tenant Representation.

And you thought we just owned or represented 6,500,000 square feet of Manhattan office space.

Contact David Greene, President of Brokerage Services at (212) 763-3559.

As seen in the January 17th – 30th, 2012 issue of The New York Real Estate Journal:

When going sideways is a good thing:
Stable office leasing market in New York

Two years out from what could have been a depression, we find ourselves in a stable office leasing market where some sections of the Manhattan market are highly sought after, with little space available, rents having moved up, landlord concessions having receded and vacancy rates lower than the rest of the city. In other locations in Manhattan, the markets are solidly moving sideways with office rents remaining constant with a stable vacancy rate.

This is the resiliency and optimism of New York as a microcosm. The Manhattan office leasing market is unlike any in the nation, stronger and more vibrant, with as wide a tenant base as any in the world. With less than a year before “national” elections, the only real “unknown” within the next 300 days, we can expect more of the same.

The Murray Hill Properties brokerage team averages more than 15 years of experience and they confirm that the market is strong in some areas and hesitating in others. But the brokers are not surprised. This interesting marketplace is also being defined by where some industries are located. The midtown market is going sideways? The majority of the tenants on the Avenues consist of large financial institutions, law firms, accountants and other Fortune 1000 companies. Their market is changing rapidly as the world financial situation continues to reveal itself and they are directly affected by what is happening not just in the US but also in financial markets all over the world. Is it any wonder that they are making their real estate decisions more carefully? Can you fault an investment bank real estate leasing decision-maker who is sitting on his hands right about now? According to the industry standard database, there are more than 90 spaces available between 20,000 s/f and 50,000 s/f on Sixth Ave. between 42nd St. and 59th St.

Other office leasing markets in Manhattan are stronger than the traditionally sturdy Midtown district. For instance, the Meatpacking district located just north of the West Village, the Flatiron district, Park Ave. South, Midtown South as a whole, these locations have a different tenant base, often younger, often technology-related, often preferring lots of collaborative open space rather than rows of individual offices, many with “home” offices outside of Manhattan. Some might say that this profile is the future of our business world. According to the same database, in the 2,000 s/f to 10,000 s/f range, between 16th and 23rd Sts. on Park Ave. South, there are just 12 spaces available, direct from the landlord.

With the world in a state of perpetual flux, very few commercial office buildings are being built right now in Manhattan, those that are, like the “trade specific” Gem Tower building on 47th St. just off Sixth Ave., not ready for occupancy for at least another year and the continually evolving World Trade Center complex coming online in 2014 will add only about 1% to available office stock. Banks may be lending more freely now for building sales but this is not so for speculative development.

The notion that New York is the center of the world and a New York market merely going sideways during continued strife around the world creates a strengthening impression of our market, as a flight of capital from other countries in search of a safe place to invest continues. Manhattan now sees an influx of monetary and intellectual capital from the Middle and Far East and Europe. Why wouldn’t we? We have an unemployment rate of 8.5%, how about the Middle East or Europe? At last look, France, a nation we are often compared to, had an unemployment rate of 9.6% Greece nearly 19%, Egypt nearly 12%, Spain 21.5% Ireland up over 14%. If we compare the political and financial systems of many of these countries with America, it’s rather simple to see why people want to come here and with all of the strife in today’s world, a market going sideways is pretty impressive.

David Greene is the president of brokerage services at Murray Hill Properties LLC, New York, N.Y

As seen in the December 27th, 2011 issue of The New York Real Estate Journal:

David Greene of Murray Hill Properties

What are your predictions for commercial real estate in 2012?

We see a continued segmentation of the Manhattan market whereby certain markets
like the Park Avenue South, Flatiron and Meatpacking districts will continue to remain
strong with rising rents, receding landlord concessions and declining vacancy while other
locations like Midtown will remain stable but will move sideways. We expect more of the
same until the national elections in November of 2012.

What was your greatest professional accomplishment in 2011?

We are very proud of our complete upgrade of the brokerage department. We
significantly improved the market research department, the marketing materials and our
new website. I am a big fan of technology and I make every effort to improve the quality of
life of every broker at MHP. We are a collaborative organization and my job is to put the
brokers in a position where they can succeed and we make it a priority to continue to do that
every day. Having been a broker, I know more than most exactly what it’s like to be
working without a net, trying to create something out of nothing.

What was your most notable project, deal or transaction in 2011?

I am proud to serve on the board of directors of TCN, our affiliate organization. TCN
covers more than 200 markets on 4 continents with annual transactions of approx. $20.7
billion. In 2011 we made some great headway with many new firms including attracting 3
dynamic firms in Canada, Terramont in Montreal, Barclay’s covering Calgary and
Edmonton and The Smith Company in Toronto. We brought in a terrific retail group in
Chicago, Paine/Wetzel and York Properties joined us from the Raleigh/Durham area. We
are actively speaking with a number of other firms.

What are your resolutions for 2012?

For decades, the commercial real estate industry has been a men’s club. We are
fortunate that we have eight smart, sophisticated, very productive female brokers and I
would like to continue to empower them.

As seen in the November 8th, 2011 issue of The Commercial Observer:

“Each year, a new flock of bushy tailed, mostly wide-eyed young professionals tangle their shirtsleeves in the cogs of New York’s commercial real estate machine for the first time, thus assuming their positions in a dance of ages that’s played since 1626, when Peter Minuit bought Manhattan from landowning Native Americans for $26 worth of beads and hatchets. As with any job, that first year can be devastating – as can the second and third, and maybe even the fourth – yet, sure enough, like clockwork, the ranks thin, until only the strong remain. With that crushing conveyor belt in mind, The Commercial Observer proudly unveils its list of commercial real estate professionals to watch in 2012…”

- Editor  [The Commercial Observer]

It was in 2004 when Esther Zar found herself handling marketing for a diamond company that was on the verge of closing. Faced with certain unemployment, Ms. Zar knew she had the goods and the opportunity to make a lot of money and a big name for herself in commercial real estate. “It just felt like it was the right thing to do,” said Ms. Zar. “No one could stop me basically. I was pretty determined to do it.” And her determination has paid off. Named Murray Hill Properties’ “Rising Star” in 2010, the indefatigable Great Neck native has represented a variety of tenants from a Krav Maga training studio to repping RGE Monitor for a 28,500-square-feet space on Morton Street.

Ms. Zar helped DSquared2, a boutique shoe company, grow from a 2,500-square-foot showroom into 10,000 square feet at the Terminal Warehouse today. That deal volume is precisely why Murray Hill president David Greene has taken to calling Ms. Zar the real estate company’s future president once he retires.

With a big building sale on the way she was coy about its specifics Ms. Zar is poised to make 2012 her best year ever. “There is always money to be made, because it is just a reaction of what is going on in the city,” she said.

As seen in the New York Post:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/realestate/commercial/chelsea_morning_for_hp_KKbPOwO38XimT82MxHMMOJ#ixzz1buv16QMl

The compact but prominent Chelsea Art Museum building has been leased by tech giant Hewlett-Packard.

The three-story loft structure at 556 W. 22nd St. sits on the northeast corner of Eleventh Avenue. It was purchased in a bankruptcy deal made by a venture of the Albanese Development Corp. and Richard Born’s BD Equities that allowed the museum to remain until the end of this year.

The 34,500-square-foot property had been pitched as a “unique branding opportunity” that included high ceilings, skylights, a “magnificent floating stairwell” and spectacular roof deck off the Hudson River “for users who desire a unique and singular environment.”

The 10-year lease that starts Jan. 1 includes a five-year option.

Pat Murphy and Jenny Ogden of CBRE represented HP. A Murray Hill Properties leasing team led by Jesse Rubens represented the Albanese/Born venture. The brokers and owners declined comment.

Sources said HP has “special” plans for the building, but everyone zipped their lips and deferred to the tech giant which, in an e-mail stated, “HP does not comment on our real estate beyond what is publicly available information.”

Meanwhile, the ownership venture is stripping off 20,500 square feet of air rights and selling it to Scott Resnick’s SR Capital for a development project at the adjacent northeast corner of the block at 551 W. 21st St., which is on a larger lot with river views. Resnick declined comment.

Photo: KATIE ORLINSK

When times get tough, practical people often move towards quality investments like bonds and treasuries and hard assets such as commercial real estate. In this new paradigm, can there be a better opportunity to take a long hard look at commercial real estate investment?

Manhattan is a place unto itself. A small island occupied by just under 2 million residents with almost 50 million tourists coming through our great city every year. The island is filled with office buildings, residential apartments and homes, open park space, numerous tourist attractions and a fairly inexpensive public transportation system. Here in Manhattan we have one of the largest populations and we are also one of the world’s safest large cities. From the Yankees, to Broadway shows, to the fantastic museums and galleries, to some of the best food in the world, to an economic juggernaut in the financial sector; it is no wonder that NYC is a top destination for most people and often considered the center of the world. Yet, somehow, none of this translates to expensive office rents as we see in Tokyo or London or Paris or even in major cities in India. Even the most recent national jobs report can’t put a dent in New York City as the report indicated a net zero gain in jobs across America yet New York City has seen an increase of 76,000 jobs since September 2009.

With that in mind though, the Manhattan office leasing market continues to get tighter. As vacancy rates are going down, rental rates are moving up and landlord concessions are receding. This is no longer news. Now, in certain markets in Manhattan, we are seeing multiple offers on space.

A good example would be the Flatiron district. If you have an office tenant, who is looking for 2,000 s/f to 10,000 s/f and they need a 5th Ave. address and want to be located between 14th St. and 23rd St., according to our industry standard database, there are exactly 10 spaces available.

The same can be said about the now trendy Park Ave. South market. If you have a 2,000 s/f to 10,000 s/f office tenant seeking space between 16th St. and 23rd St., there are exactly 10 spaces that are now available.

Yes, there are some sections of the city where the market is a bit hesitant but in most locations the market continues to get a bit stronger.

So what does this all mean? Except for the World Trade Center projects downtown and the Gem Tower in midtown, there is no new office building product coming online for a few years. Supply and demand dictates that prices will continue to rise. A lease is a financing document and with rents moving up, commercial office building prices are rising as well. As for tenants, with prices rising, vacancy rates receding and landlord incentives diminishing, it is likely they will be paying higher rents and tenants will begin to expand the parameters of their search to include new neighborhoods. Overall, we here at Murray Hill Properties see a market that is tightening and we expect it to continue in this direction for some time.

David Greene is the president of MHP Commercial Brokerage Services, New York, N.Y.

http://nyrej.com/50513

This article appeared in the July 12th, 2011 issue of Real Estate Journal.

Top 10 TCN Member Deals
1.$354M Office Lease; 367,585 SF – Audrey Novoa & Roxana Girand with Murray Hill Properties represented the landlord, NYU
Langone Medical Center
2. $22.5M Office Sale; 307,000 SF – Ford Price of Price Edwards & Company represented the buyer, Continental Resources
3.$16.1M Office Lease; 33,650 SF – Jesse Rubens, Esther Zar, & Bret Varricchio with Murray Hill Properties represented the landlord,
Outerstuff, Ltd.
4. $13M Land Sale; 576 Acres – Tom Myers with Unique Properties represented the Hall Family as the seller
5. $9.1M Multi-Family Sale; 182 Units – Kirk Ward with Norris & Stevens, Inc. represented the seller, Thunderbird Village Partnerships,
in the sale of the Thunderbird Village Apartments
6. $8.9M Office Sale; 126,170 SF – Tom McDowell & Steve Mack of Norris & Stevens, Inc. represented the seller, First Independent Bank
7. $5.5M Land Sale; 35.38 Acres – Gene Cowell with York Properties represented the seller, Tom Hendrickson
8. $5.1M Multi-Family Sale; 60,482 SF – Kevin Higgins, Ryan Floyd & Adam Riddle with Unique Properties represented the buyer, Redpeak
Properties LLC, in the purchase of this 66 unit apartment complex
9. $4.6M Office Lease; 17,359 SF – Ben Azulay, Andrew DeMoss & Jeff Bernstein of Bradford Allen Realty represented the landlord, BPG Properties
10.$4.2M Office Lease; 45,256 SF – John Grace at CASE Commercial Real Estate represented the tenant, Frac Tech

Source: TCN Worldwide Commercial Focus

This article appeared in the December 15, 2010 issue of Real Estate Bisnow

Murray Hill Properties doesn’t want to be known as just an owner-landlord anymore. It’s been a year of change for the firm, which is vigorously growing its third-party brokerage services. (Many people don’t know that MHP is one of the city’s top tenant rep firms and handles 3M SF of third-party management services.)

L to R: David Greene David Sturner, Patrick Jennings, Kamyar Haimof

1250 Broadway

We stopped by MHP’s new 277 Park Ave offices to meet with president of commercial brokerage services David Greene and partners David Sturner, Patrick Jennings, and Kamyar Haimof. It looks like their New Year’s resolution is expansion—the firm’s in recruiting mode to increase its roster of 25 brokers by another 10 (“aggressive” with “real experience” should be on your resume). MHP has added more structure to the brokerage side and invested significantly in marketing and analysis support, they tell us. During the past year, it promoted AJ Camhi to managing director, Roxana Girand, and Eric Levy to senior managing director, and Esther Zar to director as the new faces of the firm, while Norman Sturner, Patrick, and Kamyar are getting ready to come out with Real Estate Fund V, raising $500M.

What a difference a year makes on the leasing side. Tenants are making decisions again, they say, and landlords are becoming more confident and beginning to raise rents and decrease concessions. The Midtown and Midtown South markets are particularly lively, especially the Penn Station area where they own, manage, and lease more than 2.5M SF, including 1412, 1250 (pictured), 1441, and 1410 Broadway and 485 Seventh Ave—institutional capital is committed to the market, and the city lacks modern office space, making it tighter than most. MHP recently repped Escada’s 35k SF lease at 1412 Broadway and the EPA’s 21.5k SF lease at 1250 Broadway; sold 1412 Broadway for $150M and 236 Second Ave for $10.7M; and picked up the leasing agencies for 417 Fifth Ave (41k SF), 485 Seventh Ave (275k SF), 461 Park Ave South, and 530 W 25th St, among others.

David Greene, President MHP Commercial Brokerage contributed this article to the January/February 2011 issue of Northeast Real Estate Business.

NORTHEAST SNAPSHOT, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

The New York City office market has come a long way from where it was a year ago when vacancies were in double digits and rents were off 20 percent from cycle peaks. As far as we now are from the abyss, the office market will show significant further improvement as the New York City unemployment rate continues to fall, perhaps to the 8.5 percent range in the near future and its housing market continues to improve. In the meantime, we see a steadying market with rising rents and decreasing vacancy rates.

Murray Hill Properties owns, manages and leases about 6 million square feet in New York. We see demand rising as tenants gain confidence in the market and in their ability to act. Tenants and their brokers are searching for value. Although rents are improving and landlords are reducing concessions, tenants can certainly still find opportunity in the market.

Currently, Class A rents in Midtown range from the $50s to the upper $70s per square foot, excluding a few of the buildings that command $100+ per square foot rents, with the overall average in the upper $50s per square foot. Class A Midtown South rents range from the low $40s per square foot to the upper $50s, averaging in the upper $40s. In the Class A Downtown market, including the insurance and financial sectors, rents range from the $30s to the low $50s per square foot, with the average in the low $40s per square foot.

Currently, there is virtually no new development in Manhattan. Stalled development is helping the fundamentals in the office market. Vacancies are decreasing and should continue to trend downward. Midtown Manhattan has a vacancy rate of roughly 8.2 percent while the Downtown vacancy rate is approximately 11.5 percent — though this is a number that changes as the criteria and definition changes.

Of the few development projects that were stalled or underway, the 750,000-square foot Gem Tower by Extell Development on West 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues will likely go forward without lender financing and should be completed by late 2012. The Port Authority’s One World Trade Center, with a total of 2.9 million square feet, should be completed by late 2013, as will Four World Trade Center, the 1.8 million square foot tower controlled by Silverstein Properties.

For investors, there is little office product available in Manhattan. There is an abundance of cash on the sidelines looking for opportunity. As illustrated by several recent sales with impressive sales prices, the market is getting stronger and values are moving up. (Square footages are approximate.)

• 1330 Ave. of the Americas at 54th St. (534,000 square feet) sold for $400 million
• 521 Fifth Avenue at 43rd Street. SL Green bought the remaining 49 percent of the building at $502 per square foot.
• 600 Lexington at 52nd Street (303,000 square feet) sold for $193 million
• 125 Park Avenue at 42nd Street (596,000 square feet) sold for $330 million
• 100 Fifth Avenue at 15th Street (305,000 square feet) sold for $94 million
• 510 Madison Avenue at 53rd Street (350,000 square feet) sold for $275 million
• 1412 Broadway at 39th Street (415,000 square feet) sold for $152.5 million
• 685 Third Avenue (560,000 square feet) sold for $190 million, delivered vacant

There are several large buildings that are now available or coming on line that will continue the trend of higher than expected sales prices.

—David Greene is President of Commercial Brokerage Services with New York City-based Murray Hill Properties/TCN Worldwide.