New York
December was a robust month for office leasing in Manhattan, with high-profile deals signed in all three major markets of Midtown, Midtown South and Downtown.
As of Dec. 27, a total of 9.1 million square feet of office space was leased in Manhattan in 2013’s fourth quarter, according to data from commercial brokerage Colliers International. That’s up sharply from 6.31 million square feet in the previous quarter and 4.97 million square feet in 2012’s fourth quarter. Colliers chief ...

Increased availability of debt and an uptick in office rents drove demand for large Manhattan office towers in 2013. The top 10 priciest building sales of the year included nine office buildings — a threefold increase over the three office towers that cracked the top 10 list in 2012.
Those sales were driven in part by the recovery of the Manhattan office leasing market, which rebounded in 2013 after a 2012 drop-off. Last year at this time major office tenants ...

The inventory crunch shows little sign of letting up. In the fourth quarter of 2013, inventory dropped to 4,164 co-op and condominium units, a 12.3% dip from the fourth quarter of 2012, according to Miller Samuel. That’s the lowest inventory level since the firm began tracking the data in 2000. The drop was even more pronounced for new development units, whose availability fell 19.6 percent year-over-year. The situation, however, was much better on the luxury end of the market — ...

Manhattan-based developer Urban Muse is planning a 13-story mixed-use residential project at 347 Bowery in Lower East Side, the latest development in the works along the busy, rapidly changing street. The landlord filed permits to demolish the former Salvation Army shelter building at the site near Great Jones Street roughly six months after acquiring it from the Paris-based Louzon Hotel Group for $7.6 million, as previously reported. The 30,000-square-foot development would include five three-bedroom units between 2,100 and 4,000 square ...