With the prospect of further coronavirus relief coming from Washington, DC getting bleaker by the moment, state, county and local governments will be facing some harsh fiscal decisions due to the economic fallout from COVID-19 this year and in 2021. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has threatened to withhold 20% of funding earmarked for local governments, hospitals…
Read MoreSPRING VALLEY—Rockland County Executive Ed Day announced on Sept. 9 the first new hotel to open in the county in seven years—The Element by Westin here. The Element by Westin is located at 90 Spring Valley Marketplace and has already started taking reservations for its 87-room inventory ahead of a soft opening scheduled for today…
Read MoreIn early March, when the Coronavirus began to shutter almost everything in its path, the LEGOLAND New York Resort under construction in Goshen was also forced to push back its planned July 4, 2020 opening date until 2021. LEGOLAND New York and its parent company, Merlin Entertainments, made the decision to postpone the Grand Opening…
Read MoreNEW YORK— Turnbridge Equities reported on Sept. 8 it had entered into a new joint venture with affiliates of Dune Real Estate Partners LP to own and develop the five-parcel assemblage for the future Bronx Logistics Center. The joint venture has secured $105 million in predevelopment financing for the project to be developed in the…
Read MoreNEW YORK—SL Green Realty Corp reported on Sept. 8 it had closed on a new $600-million construction facility for its 410 Tenth Ave. project. SL Green is redeveloping the 636,000-square-foot office building that is anchored by Amazon and First Republic Bank. The loan was provided by a consortium of domestic and international banks led by…
Read MoreWHITE PLAINS—The Board of Directors of Westchester County’s Local Development Corporation (LDC) recently voted to approve more than $340 million in bond financing for two major not-for-profits. At its August 20th meeting, the LDC board unanimously approved $300 million in bond financing for Westchester County Healthcare Corporation, the public authority responsible for governing the Westchester…
Read MoreNEWARK—Considered one of the most important infrastructure projects in the New York metro region, the start of construction of the long-delayed Hudson Tunnel project has been pushed back by one year. The Gateway Program Development Corporation released an updated financial plan for the project on Friday. GPDC in its plan noted that the projected start…
Read MorePURCHASE—The law firm Milber Makris Plousadis & Seiden, LLP has signed a long-term direct lease deal totaling 25,000 square feet at 100 Manhattanville Road here. The law firm will relocate its Westchester office to the property owned by RPW Group from subleased space in White Plains. Commercial brokerage firm Newmark Knight Frank handled the full…
Read MoreNEWBURGH—While Orange County is in the midst of a solicitation for two storied properties on Grand Street here, the City of Newburgh has issued a Request for Proposals on Aug. 24 for developers to redevelop the iconic City Club Building at 120 Grand St. The Mayor’s Strategic Economic Development Advisory Committee, in coordination with the…
Read MoreNEW YORK—Real estate firm Helmsley Spear, LLC, which was founded in 1866, reported on Aug. 26 it had signed a new four-year sublease with Lincoln Financial comprising almost 16,000 square feet for its headquarters office, in conjunction with Swig Equities, LLC, and Falcon Pacific Construction/Builders, LLC. “Helmsley Spear and the related Swig Equities companies have…
Read MoreWASHINGTON—A majority of economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics believe that the U.S. economy is in recession and do not expect the downturn to end until the latter part of 2020 or the early stages of 2021. On a darker note, NABE President Constance Hunter, CBE, chief economist, KPMG, said that 80%…
Read MoreNEW YORK—Moody’s Analytics released its new forecasts for commercial real estate rents and vacancies on Aug. 17 and predicted that office and retail rents will drop sharply due to COVID-19 in 2020 and beyond. Noting that the office property sector was already experiencing downward pressure on the usage intensity of office space even before the…
Read MoreALBANY—While noting that July labor statistics are expected to be released soon, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli issued a report today that chronicled both the devastating impacts to the state’s labor force in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic and the recent inroads that have been made toward recovery since the state’s economy…
Read MoreNEW CITY—Saying the county is “being battered from all sides” from the coronavirus and faces significant revenue shortfalls ahead, Rockland County Executive Ed Day submitted three draft Resolutions to the County Legislature on Aug. 18 that include reviving a plan to sell a shuttered county-owned office building and raising the county’s sales tax. Day says…
Read MoreGOSHEN—In an attempt to take advantage of real estate and business market trends in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Orange County has decided to market more than 250 acres of land adjacent to Route 17 to New York City businesses looking to relocate out of Manhattan. Orange County Executive Steven M. Neuhaus recently told Real…
Read MoreBLAUVELT—Commercial brokerage firm CBRE announced on Aug. 4 that it has secured a 200,775-square-foot lease across two buildings in the Hudson Crossing Industrial Park in Blauvelt. The unnamed e-commerce tenant will occupy 123,999 square feet of space at 400 Oritani Drive and 76,776 square feet of space in the neighboring building at 200 Oritani Drive.…
Read MoreNEW YORK—Vornado Realty Trust announced on Aug. 3 that Facebook has leased all of the office space at The Farley Building totaling 730,000 square feet in Vornado’s Penn District. Vornado also released its second quarter financial results and the tremendous impacts caused by the coronavirus pandemic on its operations and finances. The Farley Building is…
Read MoreNEW YORK—New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer released a report on Aug. 3 on New York City’s Fiscal Year 2021 Adopted Budget that found an overreliance on one-time actions in the adopted budget to close the $8.33-billion shortfall brought about by the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. With significant budget gaps looming…
Read MoreNEW YORK—Helmsley Spear, LLC, reported recently it had brokered a 20,000-square-foot sublease with Keller Williams for the 10th floor of 99 Park Ave. Gould Paper Corp., the current tenant, will continue to occupy 8,718 square feet of the space. The sublease term runs through December, 2023. The Helmsley Spear leasing agents for this sublease were…
Read MoreSince early spring, when the coronavirus hit the New York metro area hard, headlines have been screeching about the residential flight from Manhattan and other parts of New York City. Newspapers, online publications, blogs, and broadcast media are continuously touting the mass exodus from The Big Apple. High-end luxury condo owners to students and young…
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