One would think that with Thanksgiving and Black Friday, the real estate drones of New York City would have taken a few days off, eaten turkey, watched football and bantered good-naturedly with the in-laws . . .<\/p>\n
But no<\/a>!<\/p>\n SEE ALSO: Robert A.M. Stern Dead at 86<\/a><\/p>\n Short week as it was, it\u2019s a crazy good market out there \u2014 and the holiday could not slow the pace of deals. (\u201cNew York is back \u2014 period,\u201d declared Vornado Realty Trust<\/a>\u2019s Glen Weiss at Commercial Observer\u2019s Fall State of Office Forum<\/a> on Nov. 20. We concur, and would only note that it\u2019s not just in New York that the office market has been rebounding<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Exhibit (a): Refinancings.<\/p>\n Rudin<\/a> spent last week putting the finishing touches on a $350 million recapitalization<\/a> for 845 Third Avenue.<\/p>\n Exhibit (b): Leasing.<\/p>\n An expansion to the tune of 114,562 total square feet<\/a> is always a good week \u2014 as was the case for EQT Partners<\/a> at SL Green Realty<\/a>\u2019s 245 Park Avenue. And then there was the sports media company Overtime<\/a> gobbling up 41,000 square feet<\/a> at Two Trees Management<\/a>\u2019s 20 Jay Street in Brooklyn. Score!<\/p>\n Exhibit (c): Sales.<\/p>\n Take your pick \u2014 AM Management<\/a>, Eyn Holding and Axonic Capital<\/a> plunking down $133 million<\/a> for 114 West 41st Street, or, Capstone Equities<\/a>\u2019 $80.8 million purchase<\/a> of 322-326 Seventh Avenue from Corem<\/a> Property Group. Either way, trades are happening!<\/p>\n Of course, it\u2019s not just New York and not just office where the cash is flowing. Down in South Florida, Naftali Group<\/a> closed on $465 million in construction financing<\/a> ($235 million of which was C-PACE financing) for the firm\u2019s 67-story luxury residential tower at Miami Worldcenter; Crow Holdings Capital<\/a> and Constellation Real Estate Partners<\/a> received $74 million in refinancing<\/a> for their 799,000-square foot industrial complex Constellation Trade Center in El Paso, Texas; and 13th Floor Investments<\/a>, Key International<\/a>, CDS International Holdings<\/a> and Wexford Capital<\/a> received $79.2 million in construction financing<\/a> for a multifamily development named Skye in South Florida.<\/p>\n Gone but Not For-Cotton<\/p>\n We learned last week that Rick Cotton, the long-standing executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey<\/a>, is retiring in 2026<\/a> after eight and a half years. (Which, as far as Port Authority executives go, is a Methuselah-like tenure.)<\/p>\n Cotton can boast that he oversaw the authority\u2019s $50 billion investment in JFK, LaGuardia and Newark airports and another $10 billion for the redevelopment of the Port Authority Bus Terminal.<\/p>\n \u201cRick Cotton has been responsible for building more of the metropolitan region than most human beings, short of Robert Moses, can claim credit for,\u201d noted the New York Building Congress\u2019 Carlo Scissura. \u201cAnd he did it through partnership, with strategic leadership and with a vision of the future that always drove innovation. He\u2019s a titan of our industry, an infrastructure czar and, personally, a mentor to me. He leaves behind a legacy of taking our airports from worst to first, securing our shores and building a better-connected Port Authority region.\u201d<\/p>\n Transit is certainly something we\u2019ve been thinking about \u2014 and not just because of holiday travel. (Speaking of holiday visits, those who were planning on staying somewhere using Sonder<\/a> are, to use a vulgar acronym, S.O.L. You should read our ticktock of Sonder\u2019s demise here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Free buses were perhaps the cornerstone of Zohran Mamdani\u2019s successful run for mayor earlier this month, and CO decided to try to figure out just how feasible<\/a> the proposal was.<\/p>\n Well . . . it has been done before. There are test cases like Chapel Hill, N.C., Alexandria, Va., Fayetteville, Ark., Bozeman, Mont. and Breckenridge, Colo. But on a scale of the 8-plus million that live in the five boroughs? No. (Although, in fairness, during the pandemic bus fares were generally unenforced in Gotham.)<\/p>\n \u201cThe city can cover the cost of some of the things that it might want to do in the transit space, but it will come out of the city\u2019s budget,\u201d warned former New York DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg at a New York University event in November, \u201ceither the city has to find the revenue for it or make some tough choices.\u201d<\/p>\n Let\u2019s talk about retail.<\/p>\n Black Friday might be over, but we\u2019re not finished talking about retail. (What about Cyber Monday? And ICSC<\/a>? Yes, ICSC, the retail conference of all retail conferences, is landing at the Javits Center in New York City on Dec. 10 and 11<\/a>, and it has us in a retail frame of mind.)<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just the one-off leases, like Blank Street Coffee<\/a> opening its largest shop<\/a> at Rudin<\/a>\u2019s 32 Avenue of the Americas; or Janie\u2019s Life-Changing Baked Goods<\/a> moving to<\/a> 434 Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side; or the luxury designer Jacob Cohen<\/a> taking the old<\/a> Michael Kors space at 792 Madison Avenue (all of which happened last week), but there are bigger trends that we\u2019d like to note.<\/p>\n For one thing, while holiday shopping might have officially kicked off with Black Friday, the truth is that retailers went into holiday mode at least a month ago<\/a>, and that\u2019s probably going to be the case going forward.<\/p>\n