BY BILLY GRAY & AL BARBARINO

To scan the papers and business web-sites, you’d assume the economy—and, perhaps, the real estate industry in general—was approaching a quagmire, what with employment rates still lower than expected and leasing sluggish.

Nonetheless, with Thanksgiving approaching we asked some of the commercial real estate industry’s biggest names what they were thankful for this year,and their answers were far more positive than expected.

After the jump, a brief sampling of the responses, as told to Commercial Observer staff reporters Al Barbarino and Billy Gray.

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BY ROBERT KNAKAL

Goodbye Twinkies, or at least Hostess Twinkies. It appears as if the iconic baking company will be liquidated, after the largest union representing Hostess employees decided to play chicken with management and lost.

The result is that 18,500 jobs will be vaporized. While reading about the plight of Hostess, one can draw an analogy between the maker of Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, Drake’s Cakes and Wonder Bread and our entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.

Since the national election a couple of weeks ago, I have been asked by reporters from various media outlets what the impact of going over the fiscal cliff would be on the commercial real estate market. While there are several possible outcomes of going over the cliff (none of which is good for commercial real estate), the more important issue in all of the things Congress must address is entitlement reform.

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BY SAM CHANDAN

I am writing this week’s column from above the Atlantic, en route to Athens for a firsthand update on the euro zone’s recalcitrant mortal threat. By the skin of its teeth, the Greek Parliament approved new and deeply divisive austerity measures last week. There have been howls of protest in the streets and from the left-leaning opposition. But if the vote had gone against Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, the entire program of support from the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund would have imploded, driving Greece from the common currency and threatening the cohesion of the monetary union.

Efforts to keep the euro zone intact may be well-intentioned, but the halfhearted approach of partial and temporary measures that has dominated other alternatives has only succeeded in magnifying the downside costs and delaying recovery. Europe has done itself a disservice in not acting decisively. With a lesson for the United States, that paralysis is proving a greater threat to long-term prosperity than the sovereign debt crisis itself.

Greece is in the spotlight, but it is hardly alone in its troubles or in its deleterious impact on its neighbors. Last week’s official announcement of recession in the euro zone was little more than a formality. Individual country reports have shown a clear pattern of weaker employment and investment activity, if not outright declines. As the sovereign debt crisis has moved from the periphery to the larger economies, widespread contraction has become inevitable.

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BY KARSTEN STRAUSS

Fifth Avenue’s drop from the top spot of Cushman & Wakefield’s list of the world’s most valuable shopping destination has more to do with surging rental rates in Hong Kong than it does a loss of value here in New York.

That city’s Causeway Bay now holds the distinction of being the most expensive strip of retail space per square foot thanks to a 35 percent rent value surge, according to C&W’s recent report. Be that as it may, some New York real estate brokers aren’t losing any sleep. In fact, they’re doubting the report’s accuracy altogether.

“There’s no doubt that Causeway Bay in particular, and Hong Kong in general, are hot, high-end retail markets,” said Jack Terzi, principal of commercial real estate brokerage, JTRE. “But I doubt that market has eclipsed Fifth Avenue as the world leader.”

Mr.Terzi is skeptical of the results for two reasons: the study may have calculated leases the entire length of Fifth Avenue, not focusing on the prime spaces between 52nd and 58th streets; and, it may also have used old leases still in place to arrive at its results—leases which “are substantially below the current market,” he said.

"Take 666 Fifth Avenue, for example, where ownership paid all its retail tenants – Hickey Freeman, Brooks Brothers and the NBA Store among them – big money to get out because they were paying well under the prevailing market,” Mr. Terzi told The Commercial Observer.

“Ownership replaced those tenants with Swatch, Hollister, Uniqlo and Zara, which paid prevailing market rents, which were far higher than what the old tenants were paying. So as spaces with old leases come up for rent on Fifth Avenue, the per-square-foot price tags on them will have gone way up, to $3,000 or more. The prices on Fifth Avenue may go even higher because there's such a paucity of available product there, and demand remains extremely strong.”

Norman Sturner, president and founder of Murray Hill Properties, doesn’t see Fifth Avenue as having lost any prestige. In fact, he feels its possible that values may increase. “I have no doubt that Fifth Avenue will retain its glamour, it’s shine,” he said.

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