BY AL BARBARINO

Brooklyn malls don’t usually come to mind as the city’s highest-grossing commercial real estate. But this year was different, with 5100 Kings Plaza, a k a the Kings Plaza Mall, taking the top spot among citywide sales when it sold for $751 million earlier this month.

It wasn’t just the biggest sale of the year—it was the biggest outright, single-trade sale in Brooklyn ever, according to data provided by Massey Knakal Realty Services.

kingsPlaza“This is an additional stone in the foundation of a stronger Brooklyn,” said Arthur Draznin, an executive managing director with Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, who was not involved in the transaction. “Williamsburg is the hottest market of the five boroughs, and lots of other areas are continuing to build up, trading at levels never seen before and rents that are competing with Manhattan rents. That’s why you see Brooklyn being so strong.”

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BY AL BARBARINO

The city’s aging population, a drive for state-of-the-art facilities and strong hiring across the health care industry prompted unprecedented growth in leasing activity in the health care sector across the five boroughs in 2012.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Mt. Sinai, Montefiore Hospital and Inventa Health were among the dozens of hospitals and medical companies to announce bold new initiatives to expand their footprints in the city in 2012, and those developments are only a sign of what’s to come, brokers and analysts predict.

New York City Exteriors And Landmarks“The health care industry is the 800-pound gorilla in the house,” said Michael Berne, managing director of Lee & Associates’ senior housing group. “It’s a key topic for real estate folks in New York City, as traditional owners start to realize the potential in health care.”

In addition, both Ventas and Health Care Properties, health care REIT giants, announced major mergers and acquisitions in 2012. And health services 2012’s third-biggest job gainer in the city as of October, with 12,000 new jobs added, according to data from Eastern Consolidated.

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BY AL BARBARINO

FEMA spokesperson William Rukeyser described the ad-hoc, jumbled feel of the company’s impromptu space in the Forest Hills Tower like a scene from a hard-hit neighborhood, with hanging wires, antennas strapped to the ceiling, Post-It notes and sheets of paper with various instructions scattered about, and impromptu folding tables holding printers and other office equipment. Most seemed at a loss for words when assessing damages.

“It’s—It’s—It’s just a mess,” Durst Organization spokesperson Jordan Barowitz told The Commercial Observer less than a week after the storm hit, struggling to describe the destruction in Lower Manhattan.

A collapsed crane infamously dangled for days over the One57 development above West 57th Street, perhaps personifying the frailty of a city faced with a challenge of mythic proportions.

But if Poseidon played a hand in the devastation Sandy wreaked across the city, it was the Zeus-es of real estate who stood to defend it, with commercial real estate heavyweights like Bill Rudin, Stephen Ross and REBNY’s Steven Spinola stepping up to do everything possible to help companies impacted by the storm get back on their feet.

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BY AL BARBARINO

The whirlwind negotiations between the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Muss Development to create an impromptu relief outpost in Queens in the days following Hurricane Sandy’s descent on New York would not have happened had it not been for one of the real estate industry’s leading dynasties.

In a deal that would later come to symbolize the overall dedication of the city’s real estate titans, government officials and executives banged out terms for 200,000 square feet of temporary space at the Forest Hills Tower in a mere five days, a minor miracle in the world of office leasing.

New York And New Jersey Continue To Deal With Aftermath Of Hurricane SandyInitial contact between the entities was made on Wednesday, Oct. 31, and by Monday, Nov. 5, just five days later, hundreds of FEMA, Red Cross and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers employees were at work at the Forest Hills Tower, an asset Muss Development owns at 118-35 Queens Boulevard in Forest Hills.

“The entire process took just a few days, which is unbelievable, since that would normally take between six to eight months,” said Jason Muss, principal at Muss Development, who gave The Commercial Observer a play-by-play account of the deal process.

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