BY GUS DELAPORTE

Sequence has signed sublease for a 4,577-square-foot portion of the fourth floor at 636 Avenue of the Americas smack at the center of the booming Flatiron District, The Commercial Observer has learned from CompStak.

Sequence will pay rent in the high-$50s per square foot in the three-year five-month deal, according to CompStak’s data. The agency will sublet the space from SecondMarket, an online marketplace for illiquid assets.

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BY AL BARBARINO

H&M is prepping to emblazon its logo atop Durst Organization‘s 4 Times Square, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The ad, to be completed later this year, will accompany the 42,500-square-foot H&M store that will open at the 48-story tower’s base, where it signed a lease for a new store and the rooftop signage in October.

The Illuminated panels, positioned on opposite sides of the tower, will reportedly measure 70 feet by 70 feet.

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BY BILLY GRAY

Ashkán Zandieh announced the release today of a Midtown South market metrics report that expands on the disruptive force of the New York start-up scene on the city’s commercial real estate industry. “From co-working spaces to subleases,” writes Mr. Zandieh (pictured), “start-ups and creative entrepreneurs alike have altered the traditional real estate industry.”

When The Commercial Observer spoke with Mr. Zandieh, the director of the creative and start-up advisory division at ABS Partners Real Estate, earlier this year, he told us that “for every high there’s a low. It’s inevitable. The market will mature. It might not dip, but it will stabilize.”

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BY SCOTT SPECTOR

My firm was recently hired by a media company for a build-to-suit project. This is nothing out of the ordinary for us. However, what does stand out is the fast track timeline: We were asked to complete the design and construction documents in just six weeks, approximately half the time we typically allot for the process. Here we go again.

This mirrors a trend I’ve been noticing lately: the rise of the “faster track” fast track project. While we certainly have the ability to handle such requests (one might even say we have it down to a science), they can still be stressful, particularly without the right parameters in place. Since the trend is not likely to disappear anytime soon, I thought I’d share a few strategies for successfully working within a compressed time frame.

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BY RICHARD PERSICHETTI

Through July, 19.2 million square feet of property has been leased, subleased and renewed in the Manhattan office market. Compared to last year, leasing activity is up 6.3 percent—not a shattering improvement, but still movement in the right direction.

New leases accounted for 55.8 percent of the leasing activity year-to-date, while renewals and subleases accounted for 35.7 percent and 8.5 percent respectively. Lease renewals started off the year strong—accounting for 42 percent of the market activity in the first five months—only to drop off in the last two months.

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