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December 18, 2012 |
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Wholesale Trumps Hurricane |
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| Good news for Sandy-battered Gravesend, Brooklyn: Thor Equities, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Brooklyn borough prez Marty Markowitz, and other officials yesterday broke ground on a new, massive BJ’s Wholesale Club on Shore Parkway that’ll create over 300 jobs for local residents. |
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| Above, NYC Councilmember Domenic Recchia, BJ’s regional manager Dan Smith, Thor Equities CEO Joe Sitt, Marty, and Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce prez Carlo Scissura move dirt on the 200k SF building, which will deliver in spring 2014 and be the wholesale club’s third store in the borough. It’ll join a Best Buy, Mercedes-Benz dealership, and New York Sports Club on the site. (Although, Joe's forearms don't need a gym—he also broke ground on a Meatpacking office and retail building last week.) |
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| DOTTIE'S VIEW |
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Expect a much busier Q4 and slow Q1 for residential as owners unload assets now to pay fewer taxes, Douglas Elliman Real Estate CEO Dottie Herman tells us. It’s still early to tell what will happen in 2013 from increases in capital gains and taxes, but she expects that prices will continue to rise: “Residential continues to be a great investment vehicle and is still the best performing—NY is already back to its pre-Lehman peak.” Financing is still an issue, particularly for younger buyers having difficulty getting mortgages. |
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Creative Concepts |
| Dottie will be receiving REBNY’s Kenneth R. Gerrety Humanitarian Award at its 117th annual banquet on Jan. 17 (register here), which recognizes a REBNY member’s meritorious service to the community. Douglas Elliman was certainly at the helm post-Sandy: its offices with electricity remained open for community relief, collected donations, and provided local residents with power and warmth. It partnered with East End Helicopter (above with donations at Long Island MacArthur Airport), trucks, and volunteers to deliver aide to Breezy Point, the Rockaways, Long Beach, and Staten Island. And Dottie used both the firm’s social media presence and her WOR radio show “Eye on Real Estate” to round up volunteers and donations, as well as provide news and info. |
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| CATSIMATIDIS TALKS BIZ, POLITICS |
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| Fresh off of starting an exploratory committee to get the pulse on a NYC mayoral run, Red Apple Group and Gristedes Foods chairman John Catsimatidis last week visited B’nai B’rith’s real estate unit lunch. We snapped the Clinton Democrat-turned-Republican, who said, “You can’t beat up companies to create jobs and beat up banks to hope they’ll extend money.” He was particularly concerned that New York is No. 50 in the US for economic development. Offer incentives to build and spend money here, he says. “Don’t scare them away with taxes.” What's critical: getting more people in the right positions, he says, and more biz people in politics. |
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| Giuliani took care of the crime and Bloomberg provided leadership, so we never felt the recession. A bad leader, he says, will impact the dollars coming into NY; in that case, you might as well “short your real estate.” Among ideas he’d push: a 2014’s World’s Fair, 50 years after the city’s famed event and one that wouldn’t be a “flashbulb” like the Olympics. He’s joined above by Hofheimer Gartlir & Gross’ Gerald Morganstern, Zlokower Co’s Harry Zlokower, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s Robert Shapiro, Sklar Realty Group’s Lydia Sklar, First American’s Jeff Mitzner, BDO’s Stuart Eisenberg, and Sholom & Zuckerbrot’s Frank Zuckerbrot. |
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Catastrophe Insurance |
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| Zurich announces an information-rich white paper examining what every property owner should know about catastrophe insurance. According to the paper, reinsurers are demanding rate increases for this kind of protection, due to the recent devastating weather activity. (Florida has experienced eight of the ten most costly hurricanes in US history, causing more than $60B in damage). Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide estimates that catastrophe losses will double every decade due to growing residential and commercial density. As premiums rise, it becomes more important than ever to understand the factors that contribute to insurance costs, and how to control loss exposures. Also, property development may require larger investments of capital over time, to cover rising insurance costs (which are passed on to policyholders). For more information on this white paper, click here. |
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| Don’t be redundant by repeating yourself twice. Email story ideas to amanda@bisnow.com and amanda.metcalf@bisnow.com. |
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