Serhant is coming to the Hamptons.

The brokerage firm has signed a lease for a multi-structure compound at 103 Hayground Road in the Southampton hamlet of Water Mill.

“I have always had an active presence here, across all price points, and I’m excited to be bringing our firm to the Hamptons to better serve our local agents and clients,” Ryan Serhant, founder and CEO of the brokerage, said in a statement.

The new office, to open this summer, is located on Montauk Highway, the main artery to the Hamptons. It will span nearly 3,000 square feet across two buildings including a lounge area and experiential space for clients, coworking space for agents, and an outpost for Serhant Studios, the firm’s in-house film and production team.

This is Serhant’s second physical location, following the opening of its Soho office in September.

In his statement, Serhant said the location will not be a traditional office in function or in layout. Instead it will encourage a “drop-in” work style.

“Like our headquarters in Manhattan, Serhant House Hamptons will be designed to be somewhere agents want to be,” he said. “It won’t be a cube farm, but rather a gathering space designed to inspire networking, collaboration and a strong company culture.”

In the Hamptons, Serhant faces competition from large brokerage firms that have offices in the area, such as Douglas Elliman, Corcoran and Compass, as well as boutique firms based in the Hamptons — and which dominate its luxury listings — including Bespoke Real Estate and Hedgerow Exclusive Properties.

Serhant will expand its Signature division, which focuses on properties priced over $10 million, to the Hamptons.

Caleb Petersen of Newmark Knight Frank represented Serhant in the leasing of 103 Hayground Road.

Article: https://therealdeal.com/2022/04/04/serhant-establishes-hamptons-outpost-dek-brokerage-signs-lease-for-office-in-water-mill/

A real estate developer plans to build a $44 million warehouse on a Hauppauge site where a different developer had hoped to construct an Amazon warehouse, officials said Thursday.

Venture One Real Estate LLC wants to buy the vacant office building at 49 Wireless Blvd., which will be demolished to make way for a 124,000-square-foot warehouse, according to Brian McDonagh, the company’s Northeast regional vice president.

He told Newsday that no leases have been signed for the proposed warehouse or two others that Venture One expects to build along Veterans Memorial Highway in Bohemia and Ronkonkoma.

Venture One is based in a Chicago suburb and the three warehouses are its first projects on Long Island, he said.

Asked about the fate of the 64,000-square-foot Amazon warehouse that had been slated for the Wireless Boulevard property, McDonagh said, “We’re not involved in that project. We are planning to build a 124,000-square-foot warehouse there.”

He declined to speak about Amazon, which has signed agreements to use at least four Venture One warehouses in Illinois, records show.

An Amazon spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday about the retailer’s “last-mile” warehouse previously planned for Wireless Boulevard. That facility was to be built by developer FSI, which is based in upstate Monroe County.

Amazon expects to have at least 10 warehouses on Long Island to make last-mile deliveries to customers’ doorstep.

On Thursday, the board of the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency voted unanimously to give preliminary approval for $2.4 million in tax breaks to the Venture One warehouse on Wireless Boulevard.

The incentive package consists of a sales-tax exemption of up to $1.1 million on the purchase of construction materials and furnishings, up to $199,300 off the mortgage-recording tax and $1.1 million off property taxes over a decade, or a savings of 25.7%.

IDA executive director Anthony J. Catapano said at least 30 people would work at the warehouse once it opens, earning $40,000, on average. He said full property taxes on the site would be $412,820 per year once the incentives end compared with the current $301,725.

Garrett Gray, Venture One’s real estate attorney, told the IDA, “Absent these benefits, [the developer] would not move forward with this project and look somewhere else to build.”

McDonagh, the company vice president, added that construction costs on Long Island are 30% to 45% higher than in northern New Jersey where it’s also planning warehouses.

Still, three members of the Suffolk IDA’s six-member board said they wanted to know who will be renting the Wireless Boulevard warehouse before granting final approval for the tax aid.

“I want to examine the tenants to see what their financial need is” for the property tax breaks, which usually are passed along by the landlord in the form of lower rent, said IDA board member Brian Beedenbender. “If the end user doesn’t need assistance then [the IDA] is in a tight spot” with taxpayers and elected officials.

Separately, the Islip Town IDA has granted tax breaks to both Venture One warehouses on Veterans Memorial Highway.

Article: https://www.newsday.com/business/ida-tax-breaks-venture-one-amazon-warehouse-last-mile-dos057rj

Manhattan’s office market reached another record in the first quarter — but, in a familiar refrain since the onset of the pandemic, it’s not a good one.

The availability rate in the first quarter reached 19 percent, according to Savills Research data reported by Bloomberg. It’s the highest availability recorded by Savills going back to 2000.

The Financial District is one of the biggest contributors to the record. More than 25 percent of the neighborhood’s offices are available to rent, according to Bloomberg, up from 17 percent a year ago.

Savills cited massive redevelopments as a likely cause of the neighborhood’s sharp rise in availability from the previous year, along with prospective tenants’ interest in “top-tier” space.

“There could be some blocks left behind as tenants shifted to higher-quality space,” Sarah Dreyer, Savills senior vice president of research and data services, told Bloomberg.

The news isn’t all bad for the borough’s office market. Asking rents have ticked up from their pandemic lows, with the quarterly average up 1.7 percent to $77.34 per square foot. In Midtown, the average asking rent was even higher at $83.70 per square foot.

Landlords are likely still pocketing less money as plenty are still offering concessions, abatements and tenant improvement allowances. The office picture may not get better anytime soon, either, as companies continue to reevaluate office needs at a time when remote and hybrid work have become more prominent.

JPMorgan Chase, the largest office tenant in the city, reportedly cut its commercial footprint by 400,000 square feet last year. That follows a downsizing by the financial titan of 300,000 square feet in 2020, though the institution still rents 8.7 million square feet in the city.

Wells Fargo is another major company that reduced its office footprint significantly in 2021, cutting 600,000 square feet of commercial space in the city. Bank of New York Mellon, financial index provider MSCI and insurance firm Voya Financial are also downsizing office space across the country.

Article: https://therealdeal.com/2022/03/31/fidis-empty-offices-lift-manhattans-availability-to-quarterly-high/

Two Long Island firms are the buyer and seller of a newly built rental complex in Lindenhurst. 

Fairfield Properties has purchased the 260-unit transit-oriented rental development called The Wel for $147 million. 

The Wel was a joint venture between East Setauket-based Tritec and its capital partner San Francisco-based Rockwood Capital. Tritec began construction of the $103 million project in Oct. 2019 and opened the complex in Oct. 2021. 

The Wel has a mix of studio-, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. Amenities include a pool, fitness center, game room and a rooftop deck. 

The Wel, built on a 7-acre former industrial site at 75 East Hoffman Ave., is located directly across the street from the Lindenhurst Long Island Rail Road station. The development earned a Top Multifamily Project honor at LIBN’s Real Estate, Architecture & Engineering Awards last year.  

Fairfield’s Lindenhurst purchase is the latest in a string of Long Island multifamily acquisitions for the fast-growing company. Earlier this year, the Melville-based apartment giant purchased the 310-unit Saddle Rock Apartments located on 41.3 acres at 1000 Saddle Rock Road in Holbrook and the 66-unit Saddle Cove Townhomes located on 8.7 acres at 100 Saddle Cove Road in Bohemia for a total of $160.7 million.  

Late last year the company purchased the 214-unit Southpoint Apartment Homes community in Massapequa for $106 million and in Oct. 2021, Fairfield acquired a 200-unit apartment complex on 41 acres in Coram for $70 million. 

Fairfield, Long Island’s largest owner and manager of rental housing, now has more than 13,000 apartments in more than 163 rental communities. 

Fairfield was self-represented in the Lindenhurst acquisition, while Jose Cruz and Steve Simonelli of JLL represented the sellers in the deal that closed last week. 

Article: https://libn.com/2022/03/29/long-island-firms-in-147m-apartment-deal/

North Hempstead Supervisor Jennifer DeSena is proposing a measure that would remove the town board’s authority regarding the building department’s decision-making on expedited permit application reviews.

DeSena, a Republican nominee who campaigned on a platform to streamline the building department, said that after reviewing the town’s departments and operations during her first 80 days in office, she found the provision “grants an unheard-of level of power for individual board members” regarding an expedited permit application.

DeSena, who is set to give her first State of the Town Address on Thursday, said this will be the first in a series of reforms she will introduce to improve the building department.

“I’m hoping that in this case, the town board will put aside the partisan interest and support this measure because we all want building department reform,” DeSena said.

A resolution to set a public hearing date for April 28 will be introduced at Thursday’s board meeting. The proposed local law would also mandate that the building commissioner decide within seven days of receiving an expedited permit application.

To approve an expedited application review, the building commissioner must determine whether the request meets one or more of the stated criteria including to accommodate an emergency situation, advance public interest, is connected to an essential service or to avoid extreme financial hardship, the town code states.

Under current law, the board members, including the supervisor, have business five days to review the application and provide a recommendation. Their decision would prevail over the commissioner’s initial determination.

The provision was introduced in 2007, the same year a scandal rocked the department, leading to the indictment of ex-commissioner David Wasserman and others. Wasserman pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year in jail.

Officials approved permits without the required inspections in exchange for favors, Nassau County prosecutors said at the time.

In the last five years, 390 requests for an expedited permit application review were denied and 56 of those were overridden by council members, town officials said. None of the applications that were already approved were reversed by council members.

Councilmember Veronica Lurvey, a Democrat, noted that the building department does need reforms, but said it requires a comprehensive approach. DeSena’s proposal, she said, could be harmful to residents and business owners because the current procedure speeds the process up for many applicants.

“[The current law] gives council members the opportunity to do what they were put in office to do and that’s to advocate in those situations that merit an expedited review,” Lurvey said.

Lurvey said she’s interested in hearing from the public about the provision.

“I look forward to the exchange of ideas and opinions that take place in public both from the residents and town board members.”

Article: https://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/north-hempstead-building-permit-town-board-co16cpsp

Billionaire investor and philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen is on a real estate buying spree in New York and plans to keep going until he’s spent more than half a billion dollars.

Berggruen Holdings, a private investment firm, and a company called Firebird Grove formed a partnership in 2020 called Oculus to build a portfolio from under-managed, operationally distressed historic multifamily properties in Brooklyn and Manhattan, according to Berggruen’s website.

Property records indicate the Paris-born German’s plan is well underway.

Firebird Grove was behind the recent $32 million purchase of Patchin Place in Greenwich Village, but records suggest that Berggruen has already spent more than $175 million on 27 properties in the city since 2020.

The company listed on the deed for Patchin Place is OR Patchin Place LLC. One of the signatories is Adam J. Semler. Records show that Semler has signed off on 27 transactions since 2020, all for companies named after the properties they bought, such as OR 107 East Second LLC and OR 240 Mulberry LLC.

From their Streeteasy profiles, the acquired buildings match the description outlined on Berggruen’s website.

Firebird Grove marks Berggruen Holdings’ fifth real estate portfolio in cities across the world. The investment firm owns 100 properties in Berlin and four in Paris, worth a combined $726 million, according to its website. Berggruen also reports owning $1 billion in property across Portland, Los Angeles and Seattle. It’s also behind the Teacher’s Village project in Newark.

A representative for Berggruen could not be reached for comment. It could not be determined if he has recently purchased other city properties besides those signed for by Semler.

The 60-year-old billionaire enrolled at New York University at age 17 and later worked for financial firms in Philadelphia before returning to New York and striking out on his own. He began buying distressed properties in the city in the 1980s and also invested in stocks, private equity, hedge funds and venture capital. Forbes estimates his net worth at $2.9 billion.

Berggruen, who occasionally shows up on society pages, has dual American and German citizenship. His main residence is in West Hollywood’s Sierra Towers building, where he spent more than $20 million buying up at least seven condo units. He also owns a 1920s Spanish Revival-style Hollywood mansion atop the Sunset Strip.

An earlier version of this story misstated Berggruen’s spending on New York City properties since 2020. 

Article: https://therealdeal.com/2022/03/25/german-billionaire-splurging-on-new-york-city-real-estate/

The long-awaited sale of 1,643 acres in Calverton is a step closer to being finalized after the Riverhead Town Board approved the transfer of the property to the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency on Thursday. 

The $40 million purchase by Calverton Aviation & Technology, representing the largest Long Island land sale in modern history, was initially approved by the town in Nov. 2018, but the sale’s closing was awaiting subdivision approval by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which has been delayed by a dispute over supplying water to the property. 

The DEC had refused to greenlight the proposed subdivision of the site unless the Suffolk County Water Authority was tapped to supply water, which the town had opposed. 

By transferring the property to the IDA, the development group would lease the site and assume the responsibility of getting the subdivision approved and securing all permits.  

Calverton Aviation & Technology, a partnership led by Canadian conglomerate Triple Five Worldwide Group, plans to redevelop about 600 acres of the Enterprise Park at Calverton site into a large industrial park. 

“We understand and appreciate the opportunity and the responsibility the town is granting us and we are ready to seize the moment,” read a company statement. “We bring decades of experience and will commit every resource available to ensure that our innovative park will be a success and a defining project for the Town of Riverhead, our company, and, most importantly, the residents of the town.” 

Zoned to accommodate 9.8 million square feet of development, the purchase agreement with the town calls for Calverton Aviation & Technology to build a minimum of 1 million square feet of development at EPCAL within the first five years. 

The unique site is primed for development. Its infrastructure includes sewers, rail freight service and two runways, one of which is active and at 10,000 feet is one of the longest on the East Coast. 

It’s been more than two decades since the town took title to the 2,900-acre Calverton property, last used by the U.S. Navy and Northrop Grumman for testing F14s and other military aircraft. Some 1,900 acres of it has been preserved as open space and to protect the region’s environmental health. The rest of the property was earmarked for economic development, though the town has struggled to land a deal for the site, despite fielding several ill-fated proposals over the years. 

The EPCAL sale was brokered by David Pennetta, David Madigan and Kyle Burkhardt of Cushman & Wakefield.

Article: https://libn.com/2022/03/24/40m-epcal-sale-advances-with-ida-transfer/

Riverhead officials are expected to vote Thursday on transferring more than 1,600 acres of the EPCAL property in Calverton to the town’s Industrial Development Agency to help speed the stalled close of the $40 million sale.

The transfer would allow the town to lease the property via the agency to venture group Calverton Aviation and Technology, an affiliate of Triple Five Group, the majority partner in the pending sale.

Town officials fielded questions from residents at a March 8 public information forum regarding concerns about the Pine Barrens and how the lease process works, among other questions.

Dawn Thomas, Riverhead’s Community Development Agency director, told Newsday that the community feedback was positive, and thus far there does not appear to be major pushback against the IDA lease process.

Town officials previously said they reached a stalemate with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Suffolk County Water Authority in a dispute over who can supply water to the property. The town is missing a key permit to complete an 8-lot subdivision for the site that is required to complete the sale. Both the town and the water authority want to supply water for the property.

A statement from DEC spokeswoman Aphrodite Montalvo said the town’s application is still active with the department.

“DEC has not been presented with details about the town’s plans to transfer parcels at EPCAL. Suffolk County Water Authority is currently authorized to supply water to the area,” Montalvo said. “If they choose not to do so, and if DEC receives required documentation from the Riverhead Water District or other entity that demonstrates adequate water supply capacity, DEC will conduct our reviews to ensure compliance.”

Riverhead Supervisor Yvette Aguiar said the move would allow greater local control of the redevelopment process and require Calverton Aviation and Technology to “take continuous and immediate action to ensure its financial wherewithal.” 

As part of those actions, the venture group would be required to spend and complete no less than $1 million of infrastructure improvements to runways on the property within the first two years and construct at least 1 million square feet of the approved commercial and industrial space, with construction to commence within 18 to 24 months of receiving the required IDA approvals, according to Aguiar.

The vote is scheduled to be held Thursday at a special town board meeting at 9:30 a.m. at Town Hall.

Article: https://www.newsday.com/long-island/towns/epcal-sale-ida-transfer-land-water-byn48ces

If you build a shiny new office building, will your employees show up to work in it?

Many U.S. companies are banking on it because they believe working in person is better for collaboration and training young employees. So even though most employees are still working from home offices and dining room tables today, some companies are willing to spend big on showplace headquarters.

Businesses recognize there is a place for offices despite the fact that they plan to give workers more flexibility to work from home and might see cost savings from limiting their real estate holdings.

In a sign of how committed companies are to keeping offices, some 57% of the more than 2,300 office projects that giant architecture firm Gensler is now working on were started last year, in the middle of the pandemic. But as they’re building, companies are tweaking designs to reflect that offices may become spots that workers visit primarily to collaborate with others, instead of places where they toil all day, every day.

Jordan Goldstein, the co-firm managing principal at Gensler, said companies are placing a premium on having more meeting rooms with the technology to accommodate remote and in-person participants, as well as more flexible space for people to choose where they work within the office.

Mutual of Omaha plans to build a glassy new headquarters in its namesake Nebraska city that could wind up as Omaha’s tallest building.

But the insurance company says the plans for its new building reflect its commitment to flexible work. The company has 4,000 employees in the Omaha metro area but is planning a building that can only accommodate between 2,200 and 2,500 people on any given day, Mutual spokesman Jim Nolan said.

“The only way that works is by embracing remote and hybrid work,” he said.

The number of people working remotely is clearly growing because so many companies learned they could do it during the pandemic. The Society for Human Resource Management estimates the number of totally remote U.S. workers will double to roughly 36 million people by 2025. But the CEO of that trade group, Johnny C. Taylor Jr., said that will still only account for a little over 20% of the workforce. The other nearly 80% will work in an office at least part of the time.

Another survey done last year by CBRE Group, the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm, showed that 87% of large companies planned to use a hybrid schedule after the pandemic, with workers in the office part of the time.

And separate worker surveys that SHRM and Gensler conducted last fall both showed that more than half of workers wanted to be back in the office at least one day a week.

But so far businesses have been slow to bring employees back. An average of 36.8% of the workforce was back in offices during the fourth week of February in 10 major U.S. cities monitored by Kastle Systems, which tracks building access-card swipes. That number has been creeping up since early January when it fell as low as 23% during the omicron surge.

Mutual of Omaha CEO James Blackledge said bringing people together in an office at least periodically will boost productivity and creativity, and having a gleaming new $433 million office should help the company attract new talent. Plus, the new headquarters will likely be smaller overall than Mutual’s current headquarters complex, but the exact size will be determined later in the design process.

Elsewhere, two high profile projects already underway are Walmart’s new headquarters being built in Bentonville, Arkansas, and the new New York City home for bank JP Morgan Chase.

Walmart said it was overdue for a new headquarters regardless of the pandemic because it is currently spending tens of millions of dollars every year to maintain an outdated patchwork of more than 20 offices in northwest Arkansas for its administrative and support staff.

JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon has said that the rise of work-from-home might mean the company only needs 60 desks for every 100 employees because they will be shared. But he remains committed to a new headquarters for 12,000 to 14,000 of the bank’s employees because many tasks will still need to be done in person.

Deluxe, the company once known primarily for printing checks that now processes nearly $3 trillion in payments a year, invested $12.2 million during the pandemic in a new 94,000-square-foot Minneapolis headquarters that opened last fall. When they return on a more regular basis later this month, employees will be expected to be there more often than they work from home.

But the new headquarters is less than one-third the size of Deluxe’s old one. The company cut its overall real estate footprint in half nationwide to better reflect its current needs with more people working remotely.

Deluxe CEO Barry McCarthy acknowledges that parts of each of his employee’s jobs can be done remotely, but coming together and being able to work as a team is a bigger element.

“There are very, very few jobs that are just individual contributor jobs with little or no interaction required from others,” he said.

McCarthy, like many CEOs, says he believes office work is better for training and mentoring younger employees because they can watch and interact with their coworkers better and get more immediate feedback on their work.

The roughly 100 headquarter workers at shoe and apparel company Merrell moved into a new office in Rockford, Michigan, in January. The project was in the works before the pandemic began, but CEO Chris Hufnagel said the company reworked the plan after it became clear that many employees would still work from home, at least part of the time. Hufnagel said he believes the office will be the “epicenter” for the company’s work.

“I think everyone realizes that there are parts of our jobs that we do better when we are together,” Hufnagel said.

And then there are companies that plan to largely do away with their offices in favor of remote work. But even those firms may keep a small office presence.

Intradiem CEO Matt McConnell said the software company had its most profitable year ever in 2021 and didn’t miss a beat while its 150 employees and 75 contractors were all working remotely. After checking with employees, the company shifted to a remote-first plan and will let its current headquarters lease expire at the end of 2022.

“It’s just this big, empty space that no one is using. It doesn’t make any sense to maintain that,” McConnell said.

But Intradiem, which is based in Alpharetta, Georgia, will likely still maintain a smaller headquarters with space for its IT workers to put together equipment to send out to home-based workers, and the company will encourage teams to occasionally get together in person. They may also rent some space at shared offices run by WeWork for employees across the country to use.

Modular flooring manufacturer Interface just opened a new headquarters in 2018, but the pandemic prompted the company to spend $400,000 remodeling the building and investing in new technology and furniture to adjust to workers only being in the office part of the time.

Darby Gracey, Interface’s director of worklife and workplace strategy, said she knows the roughly 175 headquarters workers didn’t miss commuting in Atlanta traffic while they worked from home, but the company has asked them to return at least some of the time.

“We believe a major part of culture comes from the ability to sit down and have a cup of coffee with an colleague or have a white-boarding session with a teammate — just actually getting together in person and being able to read body language — we believe that there’s a lot of value in that and it’s something we’re standing firm on,” Gracey said.

Article: https://libn.com/2022/03/21/new-offices-for-the-hybrid-era-many-companies-are-on-board/

Zorn’s of Bellmore, a fixture in the neighborhood for 26 years, is closing and the property is being sold. 

Peter Zorn, the owner of the popular restaurant and take-out eatery with the recognizable blue-and-white striped awning at 2495 Merrick Road, is retiring and moving out of the area. The store is slated to close on March 27. 

Zorn’s sister Merrill continues to own the Zorn’s operation in Bethpage, where their grandfather Peter began selling turkeys out of a cement-block building on Hempstead Turnpike in 1940. At one time the family, led by their great grandfather Josef Zorn, who emigrated here from Germany in the 1920s, owned eight poultry farms on Long Island and one in New Jersey. 

Bellmore-based MGD Investments is in contract to purchase the 3,500-square-foot building on .34 acres that housed Zorn’s of Bellmore. The new owner has been fielding interest from prospective national and regional tenants to lease the property. 

MGD Investments principal Larry Weinberger, said he was interested in the Zorn’s property because MGD also owns the 6,000-square-foot commercial building next door at 2477 Merrick Road. 

MGD is an active developer and property owner in the Bellmore area and Weinberger reports there’s been a lot of recent interest in businesses wanting to locate in the community. 

“Although it’s sad to see such an iconic neighborhood establishment closing its doors, we hope to bring in another dynamic business that the community will embrace,” Weinberger told LIBN. 

Article: https://libn.com/2022/03/18/bellmore-zorns-to-close-and-its-property-is-being-sold/