Just when we thought we were out, they pull us back in.
We’re talking about the New York Mayor’s Race, of course. Just as it looked like Eric Adams was at the end of the personal vote in the Democratic primary on Jan. the ranking choice voting Results in the past week. These results showed that Kathryn Garcia and Maya Wiley won quite a bit over Adams and left the whole thing up in the air.
But – it turned out that that old faithful of the public trust, the New York Electoral Board, incorrectly included 135,000 fake test votes in this calculation. GmbH.
One replay still resulted in a close race between Adams and Garcia, counting tens of thousands of postal votes. However, whoever wins is likely to be a commercial real estate win. Both candidates are relatively friendly towards new developments. (CRE’s preferred candidate, Ray McGuire, retired from the race and was eliminated from the ranking list.)
Speaking of bad weeks …
Allen Weisselberg, Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organization was charged in Manhattan last week in 15 criminal proceedings in connection with alleged tax evasion. Weißelberg pleaded not guilty. The Trump organization itself faces 10 criminal charges, and the company’s lawyers also pleaded not guilty.
Weißelberg faces a long prison sentence. Or he could rob his employer and strike a deal with the prosecutor. Or hit the rap all the way.
Now something else
And big. Big deals over the past week have underscored the strength of the commercial real estate market and industry emanating from COVID. Where to start
Well, maybe out in LA County. Aerospace company Relativity Space signed for 1 million square feet at the Goodman Commerce Center in Long Beach. It’s one of several major leases in the Los Angeles area recently.
Meanwhile, in South Florida, the dining scene was taking shape in the huge Miami Worldcenter with the 27-acre facility colorize the first restaurant offers.
There was also a huge sale of buildings in the south. CP Group and Rialto Capital Management have teamed up to the purchase of the 1.2 million-square-foot One CNN Center Tower in Downtown Atlanta (however, buyers are best known for roaming the Miami market, so this deal is new precisely because of that).
And up in New York City, Bolivar Developments 400 West 219th Street signed one of the largest single leases in Gotham in months: 124,000 square meters for 30 years for the Zeta Charter School.
Probably the biggest deal of the week, however, wasn’t a sale or lease – it was the completion of a major refinance. Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs have apparently beaten many comers Provide $ 3 billion in refinancing for SL Green Realty Corp. Titanic One Vanderbilt Tower in Manhattan.
Also, it’s not $ 3 billion, but it is something (and it gives us a chance to give Philly some love): Natixis and Lionheart Strategic Management, the latter a subsidiary of Fisher Brothers, $ 178 million allocated to refinance a Post Brothers multi-family portfolio.
Yet …
There is still a lot of headwinds in the market and they blew us in over the past week. For one, we learned that Manhattan has an office availability rate north of 18 percent. That’s a lot of unfilled holes – all the more serious given the recovery that is underway.
Despite the large leases mentioned above, LA is not out of the woods either. Office rental activity in LA County declined 21 percent annually in the second quarter. Miami’s office market it’s not going so well either.
Even big banks like UBS and Capital one, committed to hybrid working models over the past week, which means they are likely to take up less space in the future. (Interestingly last week, Apple had to fend off Complaints from some employees that they are not hybrid enough.)
We close on a positive note.
One of the brightest rays of hope in the dark ages of COVID has been ingenuity in fighting the virus, including developing therapeutics and especially vaccines. And one of the side effects of this ingenuity, so to speak, was the insatiable space requirement to develop such products and technologies.
This is where the life sciences industry comes in. It has grown and grown especially in the past year and a half in the DC area and in New York City. It attracted more money than ever along the way, with many investors learning on the go so as not to miss the boom.
Would you expect anything different in an industry led by? Colleen Wenke., Co-President of Taconic Partners? Of course you wouldn’t.
Thanks for reading and have a nice fourth of July!