Development
Tishman Speyer began construction on the first phase of Gotham Center, a $316M, 3.5 MSF mixed-use development in Long Island City. The 662k SF, 21-story tower is located at the corner of Queens Plaza and 28th Street, and will include 9,400 SF of ground floor retail and 180 parking spaces. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will occupy the building.
Exec Moves
Stephen Shapiro and John Wilcox have joined investment banking firm Savills. Stephen comes over from Eastdil Secured, where he was part of the team that worked on Blackstone's $39B acquisition of Equity Office in 2007. John was with DTZ Rockwood's capital markets group, where he was a restructuring and turnaround professional, advising creditors and debtors on many high-profile bankruptcies. They've worked on a combined $30B in finance deals in their careers.
Investment
KBS REIT II purchased the six-building, 1.1M SF Park Avenue office complex in Florham Park, N.J. for $365M, one of the largest office deals in the Northeast this year. KBS was represented in-house for the final four buildings, while Jeff Dunne of CB Richard Ellis represented the undisclosed seller. In addition to Jeff, CB'sKevin Welsh, David Gavin and Samuel Buckley represented the owner and procured KBS in the sale of the first two assets.
Financing
Holiday Fenoglio Fowler's New York office secured a $25M first mortgage financing for Rockaway 80, a 260k SF Class A office building in Rockaway, NJ. Steven Klein and Michael Tepedinorepresented the borrower, an affiliate of Grosvenor Investment Management, in arranging the floating-rate loan throughMassMutual.
Leases
Accounting firm Grant Thornton inked a 36k SF, five-year renewalat 60 Broad Street. Mitchell Barnett, David Malawer, and Andrew Peretz of Cushman & Wakefield represented the tenant, whileAnthony Stapleton, Eric Sarner and Sheila Nayson of Cogswell Realty Group and George Wells of Piedmont Office Realty Trustrepresented the landlord, Piedmont.
Lease & Management Assignments
Colliers ABR won two exclusive leasing and management assignments. Jim Frederick will handle 527 Madison Avenue, owned by Mitsui Fudosan, and David Hoffman, Wendy Miller andRobert Billingsley will handle 360 Lexington Avenue, owned byAEW Capital Management.
Mergers
Title insurance agencies Kensington National Land Services andVanguard Title Agency merged to create Kensington Vanguard National Land Services (KV National Land, for short). The newly formed entity is led by Brian Cooper and Jarett Fein, co-CEOs and principals.
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