Real Estate Forum - October 2011

REAL ESTATE FORUM’s

TOP BROKERAGE HOUSES

Widely considered the epicenter of
the financial and business world, New
companies, ranked by the total square
footage of leases closed, followed by the
York is a city that thrives
on the deal. The Big
top five investment brokerage firms,
ranked by total dollar vol-
Apple’s real estate mar-
ket is just as notable; it’s
a place where fortunes
are made, or lost, and
records are set and shat-
tered over and over again.
ume of sales completed.

New York

New York is home to many of commercial real estate’s most famous—and infamous— transactions, as the city attracts both tenants looking for space and investor capital. But all of those headline-stealing deals start at one place: the negotiating table. This is where brokers play a starring role, constructing the best possible contracts for their clients, be they tenants, landlords, buyers or sellers.

The editors of REAL ESTATE FORUM collected deal information from leasing and investment brokerage houses across the metro area to come up with a roster of the most active companies. This year’s roster features the top five landlord- and tenant-representation

Separately, we’ve ranked the top companies by the number of deals closed in both categories. Deal information is for transactions closed in the Greater New York area between July 1, 2010 and June 30, 2011 and all data shown has been supplied and verified by the companies themselves. Each firm also supplied its top leasing and sales producers, presented in alphabetical order. (*In the leasing section, we’d like to clarify that Cushman & Wakefield represented the Port Authority in renegotiating Silverstein Properties Inc.’s 99-year net lease of the complex’s other towers: 2, 3 and 4 World Trade Center, for a total of 6.2 million square feet. Please note that this deal did not actually involve the occupancy of space.)

LEASING
1
Cushman & Wakefield

AREA LEADER

GLENN RUFRANO

President & CEO

Total Square Footage of Completed Leases: 27,252,869 SF

In a deal that had the industry buzzing for months before all parties signed on the dotted line, C&W successfully arranged Condé Nast Publications’ million-square-foot office lease within One World Trade Center, as the exclusive agent on behalf of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Durst Organization. Game-changing though that lease may be for Lower Manhattan in general and the World Trade Center complex in particular, it’s not even the largest that the firm negotiated at the site over the past year.

C&W also represented the Port Authority in renegotiating Silverstein Properties Inc.’s 99-year net lease of the complex’s other towers: 2, 3 and 4 World Trade Center, for a total of 6.2 million square feet. On the tenant side, C&W represented Nomura Holding America Inc., in the lease of over 900,000 square feet of space in Worldwide Plaza at 825 Eighth Ave. for its Americas headquarters. The three transactions alone totaled more than eight million square feet, and put C&W over the top to lead this year’s ranking of New York leasing brokerages.

Glenn Rufrano, president and CEO of C&W, predicts that national employment growth “will accelerate from the slow second quarter, causing New York to experience further increases in demand for space. In a market that will see no new deliveries until 2013 and 2014, this employment growth is expected to lead to lower vacancy and put further upward pressure on rents.”