Sunday Summary: Oh Me, Oh Moinian! – Commercial Observer
As you settle in with your first cup of joe of the morning, you should also drink in Commercial Observer’s Sit-Down with Joe Moinian.
Some things we learned from this interview:
- Before real estate, Moinian was in the fashion business. (Now that he mentions it, yes, we’ll concede he was always one of the more nattily dressed figures on Power 100.)
- 3 Hudson Boulevard is in talks with an anchor tenant. (Yeah, yeah — developers always say that … but, given the tightness of the New York City office market, we believe him.)
- Moinian has zero retail vacancy.
On the second item, Moinian’s Hudson Yards machinations are something to truly get excited about. He’s about to be injecting 1.9 million square feet of Class A office into a city that’s desperate for new stock.
We at CO will be listening closely for anything that sounds like an anchor dropping.
It’s beginning to look a lot like earnings…
The new quarter is only about two weeks old, but the first of the report cards from the last quarter are already available:
Prologis, the big mamou of industrial real estate, is doing predictably amazing. Occupancy sits at 95.1 percent (a year earlier it was a laughable 94.8) and the company signed 60 million square feet of leases last quarter, with $2.39 billion in revenue (about $180 million better than the third quarter of 2025).
And, with an expected $5 billion to $5.75 billion in new development this year, and another $2.1 billion to $2.3 billion in acquisitions, there’s very little end in sight.
But be warned: More report cards are coming up.
Over at RXR we learned that Whitney Arcaro has gotten a serious promotion to chief operating officer of the firm’s residential business — and, to help run that esteemed asset class, RXR also hired Gerard Norcia away from Olmstead Properties, where he had served as CEO.
We also learned that two of CBRE’s most respected names — Doug Middleton and Jack Stillwagon — hopped over to Cushman & Wakefield.
Finally, Yanni Marmarou, who was previously at Investment Property Realty Group and helped launch their New Jersey office, has jumped over to Arrow Real Estate Advisors.
The lease goes on
If you’ve been reading CO, lo, these many months, you know that office leasing has been going gangbusters in New York City (despite the occasional office-to-resi conversion) — and last week was no different.
Those who like to think about public-private partnerships will have a nice private office to do their thinking in: The World Economic Forum is taking more than three floors at the Durst Organization’s 825 Third Avenue for a total of 58,131 square feet.
The private equity investment firm Garnett Station Partners grabbed an additional 10,392 square feet at SL Green Realty’s 450 Park Avenue.
But the eye-catching lease of the week would have to be a retail one, when the South Korean luxury eyeglass designer Gentle Monster took a whopping 28,500 square feet in the vacated REI space at the Kushner Companies’ Puck Building. That was not quite all of the REI footprint — which was 35,000 — but foodies will rejoice when they learn that Italian restaurant Torrisi will be expanding into the remainder, which should make a reservation easier to get, right? Right?
Oh — and whoever said that Southern California office was obsolete doesn’t know the Pacific Design Center. Cohen Brothers Realty reported more than a dozen deals for the West Hollywood complex, totalling 76,100 square feet — including one for … Brooklyn? (Checks notes.) Ah, that’s Brooklinen.
Speaking of Brooklyn
Leasing an apartment in Brooklyn has gotten expensive. Like, really expensive. According to the latest tally from the Corcoran Group, the average rental is now $4,300 per month — marking a 10 percent annual increase in September. (Which is still better than Manhattan, whose average clocked in at $5,395 a month.) And the amount of leasing activity is the best it’s been since 2020.
And, hey, who doesn’t like Brooklyn?
Double U Development certainly sees the potential — it just secured $23 million in construction financing from Colorado Federal Bank to convert the old Polonaise Terrace wedding hall in Greenpoint (most recently the Brooklyn Bazaar concert hall) into apartments.
As does developer Shlomi Avdoo (of the eponymous firm) who has been on a luxury condo tear. “There is a renewed appreciation for natural materials, craftsmanship and thoughtful detailing because people recognize the difference between what is fashionable today and what will still feel considered 20 or 30 years from now,” Avdoo wrote in CO last week.
And any borough the size of Brooklyn (it’s roughly as populous as Chicago) deserves a professional sports team. Moreover, a professional sports team needs a place to practice. In that spirit we learned last week that the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and the WNBA’s New York Liberty picked up three new training facilities in Bushwick, Gowanus and Greenpoint in an all-cash deal.
October surprise
We’re nearing an election and with it there’s a lot of chatter about the Senate and the House of Representatives and governors and Democrats and Republicans….
But the public face of politics is only part of government — and probably the less interesting part.
The people behind the scenes were always the characters to focus on, and this week CO profiled one of the big players in commercial real estate lobbying: Suri Kasirer.
If you want help from the under-the-radar figure who helped usher One Vanderbilt through the minefields of rezonings and transitioning (and possibly hostile) mayoral administrations and everything else, look no further than Kasirer.
“Suri took the lead on re-emerging that zoning with the incoming administration,” said Marc Holliday, CEO of One Vanderbilt developer SL Green. “It looked dead for about three months. But, working with Suri, we figured out an approach to not only propose the zoning, but also the project itself, that put both through a land use review simultaneously so that people could see the tangible nature of the benefits they would receive under the zoning. When we actually put the project in for dual approval, everybody got very excited, because they loved the design and all the benefits to the public realm. That shift in strategy allowed us to go at it a second time with the council and get it approved. That was everything.”
So, after you finish with Joe Moinian, get another cup of joe and read all about Kasirer.
See you next week!
