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Things are looking good for the owners of New York’s commercial skyscrapers.
An improving economy and increasing demand from foreign investors have brought Manhattan’s office-building values back to where they were before the crash.
According to Green Street Advisors, the index of midtown values was at 99.4 in June, up from 87.2 a year earlier. The index reached its peek in 2007 — hitting 100. Its lowest point? In April 2009, when the index sunk to 45.5.
While this boom …

Building owners are always looking for ways to slice and dice their properties to maximize profits. On the commercial side, selling off condo interests for either office or retail space has become commonplace. On the residential side, savvy developers such as RAL Companies have created private rooftop “cabanas.”
But some building owners in Times Square are now looking to milk their prime locations by “condominiumizing” their properties’ lucrative signage. Though telecommunications antennas have been condo-ed for years, sources said, signage-specific …

In the first quarter of 2014, the listing inventory in Manhattan was relatively unchanged at 4,968 units compared with 4,960 units a year earlier, according to a report by appraisal firm Miller Samuel. Meanwhile, the average number of days a property was on the market dropped to 115 from 132 last year.
Miller Samuel’s data show 45.9 percent of Manhattan condos and co-ops sold at or above the listing price during the second quarter, up from 38.1 percent in the …

One man, Clement Clarke Moore, has two claims to fame: 1) writing “The Night Before Christmas” and 2) totally creating the neighborhood of Chelsea. In the 1800s, Moore split up and sold off his grandfather’s estate, which dominated the area (and gave it its name), and began developing the surrounding blocks. Fast forward 200 years, and a scrap of Moore’s grandfather’s land—holding an 1836-built house at 354 West 20th Street, between Eighth and Ninth avenues—hit the market in January, asking …