BY BILLY GRAY

It’s described by real estate wheelers and dealers as “the industry’s only must-attend event.” A crippling bout with a stomach virus was the only thing that once kept a 25-year veteran of the affair away. At least one pillar of the brokerage community wants the whole thing disbanded.

The Real Estate Board of New York’s Annual Banquet is back this week at the New York Hilton’s Grand Ballroom, its 117th edition. Food will be served and ignored. Booze will flow and attention will be paid. Award recipients will make acceptance speeches drowned out by a cacophonous crowd that makes the old Yankee Stadium’s bleacher creatures look reserved.

The first Real Estate Board of New York (then the Real Estate Board of Brokers) gala took place on May 12, 1897, at the since-destroyed Marlborough Hotel on Broadway between 36th and 37th Streets. The dinner started with littleneck clams and ended with “fancy ice cream” for the evening’s 50 assembled members and guests.

Banquet attendance increased twentyfold, to 1,000 guests, between 1897 and 1914. And the (hypothetically) black-tie event has only gotten bigger and louder since then.

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BY BILLY GRAY

The new year ushered in a shaken-up hierarchy to the Real Estate Board of New York.

Tishman Speyer President Rob Speyer has replaced Mary Ann Tighe as chairman. Mr. Speyer, 43, is the youngest chairman in the board’s 117-year history, and will inherit the position from the first female to ever hold it. Despite his youth, Mr. Speyer has history on his side: he’s the third generation of his family to be named REBNY chair.

Mr. Speyer’s combination of youth and lineage is well-suited to an organization that in 2012 faced fresh, modern challenges whose resolutions required the full weight of the influence REBNY has accrued over the past century. Hurricane Sandy caused unprecedented damage to coastal areas of the city and its transportation system, not to mention the related electric grid failure. And while major storms are nothing new, they seem on course to increase in size and frequency.

After Sandy, REBNY lobbied politicians for desperately needed federal relief aid, housing recovery plans and disaster preparedness measures; formed and deployed ad hoc task forces to hard-hit communities; and worked to restore service to damaged commercial buildings as it temporarily relocated displaced firms and their employees from lower Manhattan to Midtown and other neighborhoods largely spared by the storm.

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BY BILLY GRAY

After spawning enough trend pieces last summer to merit its own styles section, Wythe Avenue in northside Willliamsburg continues to churn out high-profile nightlife openings.

The next promising arrival is Output, a 452-person-capacity nightclub at 74 Wythe Avenue that looks to give the neighborhood’s discerning electronic dance music contingent a place other than legally dubious warehouses and lofts to check out its favorite deejays.

A source familiar with the project told The Commercial Observer that Output will be one of two venues operating under separate leases at the 11,424-square-foot building (up from 7,324 square feet after the construction of a second floor). The main club (and restaurant) will be joined by a back room and roughly 2,500 square feet of outdoor rooftop space, together accommodating up to 348 people.

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BY AL BARBARINO

A 15,000-square-foot mixed-use building at 647 Bryant Avenue in the Bronx – located roughly half a mile from The BankNote building in one direction and the same distance from the Hunts Point Terminal Market in the other direction – is on the market for $1.5 million.

The property features an 8,500-square-foot ground floor commercial space with 75 feet of frontage, currently occupied by job placement and training non-profit FEDCAP, and a second floor featuring three market rate apartments that could be converted to office or additional commercial space.

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BY KARSTEN STRAUSS

Canadian real estate services company, Avison Young, is predicting a cautious first quarter, despite reporting impressive sales in New York City’s investment sales market.

Strong sales was a hallmark of 2012’s fourth quarter, influenced by economic uncertainty due to so-called ‘fiscal cliff’ negotiations between President Barack Obama and Congress. Sellers chose to place assets on the auction block in the hope of closing deals prior to the New Year and avoiding having to pay increased capital gains taxes.

In 2012, the total volume of sales rose 46 percent since 2010, and 87 percent since 2009, according to figures released by Avison Young’s New York offices last week. Investors will continue to feel bullish in New York’s market and sellers will look to profit from current interest rates, said Jon Epstein, principal with the firm’s capital markets group (pictured, above).

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