Amazing that the Queen went to the wrong party last night at the British Ambassador's; the truly regal one was Vornado/Charles E. Smith's at the Corcoran. Heat level? 9.75 Who? 300 top brokers and friends. Susan Gage catering, Step Africa dancers, slick video. Celebrating? 1999 K St, 12-floor, 250,000 trophy SF to deliver in April '09. People we asked had to reach back in their memories to parties like Akridge's in the 80's for the Homer Building to remember such a classy office sendoff.
Host of the night, Mitchell Schear, left, with the building's famed architectHelmut Jahn, Vornado Office President David Greenbaum in from New York, and Mitchell's EVP Laurie Kramer. Jahn has done lots of high profile buildings around the world—the huge Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin (2000) and One Liberty Place, Philadelphia's tallest building (1987)—but never before in Washington. He said he plans to make the lobby like "the inside of a jewelry box" and even the trip in the elevator an "experience" unto itself. Mitchell is making good on his effort to blend the high-end Kaempfer he ran with high-volume Smith.
Under 35 Winners! Also on hand at the Corcoran last night, Cushman's Audrey Cramer is the only one young enough to qualify for our contest. Newmark's Earl Segal, CB's Art Santry, and Cassidy's Bill Collinsonly qualify in the "Under 35 Years of Service" category, and even then only with fake IDs.
Jones Lang's Bobby Schwartz, Cushman's Brian Raher, Cassidy's Joe Stettinius, and Cresa?s Gene Sachs. Bobby got some grief when we spelled his name "Bobbie" a while back. For the record, it has a strong, masculine spelling. Please flood him with emails again.
Boomers! The companies represented in this picture seem to be exploding in growth. Cassidy & Pinkard's Bob Pinkard, left, with colleague Jayne Shister, tells us they've hired over 100 people in the last three months (most recently Equity's Marty Almquist), and increased their leasing footprint from 12 to 30 mm SF since the beginning of the year. Mitchell, whom we used to think of as merely mayor of Crystal City, looks now more like the regional governor. As for brokers Tina Weaver and Pat Marr ofCB, they obviously work for a company that's taking over the world.
Fox Architect's Sabret Flocos (looking calm before she chairs CoreNetnext week), Westy Kent of Kent Tenant Representation Services, and Cassidy's Barbara McDuffie.
And the winner of the Corcoran Best Smile Contest is: A tie! Davis Construction's Jim Davis and Studley's Bob Peck.
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