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Uncertain times are in store for New York City again as it braces itself for the aftermath of the tumultuous few weeks on Wall Street. Marisa Di Natale, a senior economist for Moody’s|Economy.com and John Powers, chairman of the tri-state region for CB Richard Ellis Inc., offered their macro and micro views on what to expect at a luncheon hosted by CoreNet Global’s New York City chapter this afternoon. Di Natale noted that the U.S. is definitely in a recession, and has been since the fourth quarter of 2007. “We’re down 600,000 jobs, unemployment has gone from 4.4 percent to…

The developments at Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG will have their biggest impact on available sublease space, according to a Grubb & Ellis Co. report authored by research manager Richard Persichetti. And as there are other failures, acquisitions and consolidations already discussed or rumored, there is sure to be continued pressure driving vacancy rates up and rent prices down. Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch alone occupy approximately 6 million square feet in Manhattan. Persichetti told CPN that the forecast doesn’t change based on today’s developments with the troubled firms.The additional sublease space will increase options for tenants and inevitably…

A 15-property Del Taco restaurant chain portfolio entered into a sale-leaseback deal with 20-year absolute Triple Net leases. The $24 million sale includes sites built between 1998 and 2002 in Arizona, California and Nevada. Richard Walter and Dennis Vaccaro of Irvine, Calif.,-based Faris Lee Investments represented the buyer, Innovative Property Partners, LLC, et al., a group of investors based in Orange County, Calif. who were in a 1031 Exchange. Del Taco Corp., which represented itself in the transaction, executed 20-year absolute NNN leases with the buyer and will continue to operate the properties. Del Taco Corp. was interested in a…

The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America and the ongoing financial woes of AIG that unfolded over one weekend in September were among the latest wave of bad news for New York City’s office market to digest. The three firms own or lease 9.5 million square feet of office space in Manhattan, according to the Associated Press.Manhattan’s office vacancy was at 7.1 percent, according to a midyear report on the market from Cushman & Wakefield Inc. While that is a healthy figure, it is also one that is on the rise, increasing 1.8…

The outlook of consumers and shopping center executives alike continues to be mixed at best. In widely reported results released on Friday, consumer sales dropped 0.3 percent from July to August for a nationwide total of $381.2 billion, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Overall, the retail picture continues to suffer by comparison with last year. In the most recent monthly survey of shopping center executives conducted by the International Council of Shopping Centers, about 68 percent of executives reported that the number of cars in their parking lots had declined compared to August 2007. Sales, customer sales and occupancy…

In a business climate hammered by a slowing economy, the Gulf Coast storms and the weekend’s failure of Lehman Brothers, the improving U.S. export market is arguably the main factor keeping demand for distribution and manufacturing space afloat. According to figures released on Thursday by the U.S. Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration, exports through July rose 18.3 percent. Canada led the top four buyers of U.S.-produced goods markets, tallying $158.7 billion through the first seven months. Mexico, China and Japan rounded out the rest of the top four.The next few weeks will also start to reveal the repercussions of the…

The hotel industry continues to see some troubled times, but the recently concluded political conventions certainly gave the lodging markets of Denver and Minneapolis welcome boosts.For the week ending Sept. 6, Minneapolis, site of the Republican Party get-together, had the biggest RevPar increase among all U.S. cities, at 143.4 percent, according to Smith Travel Research. The Democratic Convention gave Denver a similar bump, as RevPar was up substantially, by 140.8 percent, for the week ending Aug. 30. By comparison, RevPar for all U.S. hotels increased by only 1.4 percent for the week ending Aug. 30 and tumbled 6.2 percent for…

With the office sector marred by a floundering job market, the National Association of Realtors anticipates a vacancy rate of 14.4 percent in the second quarter of next year, up from 12.9 percent for the same period this year, according to its latest Commercial Real Estate Outlook. Annual rent growth should continue to shrink, having averaged 8 percent last year and likely dropping to 3.2 percent this year and actually turning negative by 0.4 percent next year as net absorption hits an expected 14.7 million square feet in 2008 and 10.9 million in 2009–a far cry from the 57.3 million…

U.S. industrial markets stayed sluggish during the second quarter, according to the latest SIOR Commercial Real Estate Index, compiled by the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors in conjunction with the National Association of Realtors. Accordingly, their index measuring industrial performance tallied 68.5 points, more than 53 points lower than the index’s highest score—netted in the first quarter of 2006. A score of 100 points represents a balanced marketplace.Prospects for the next several quarters remain dim. While the weakened dollar has bolstered exports, the National Association of Realtors is predicting in its latest Commercial Real Estate Outlook that the sector’s…

Hotel sector investment sales took a hit during the first half of the year. U.S. hotel sales volume plummeted 79 percent to $7.3 billion in the first half of 2008 compared with the first half of last year, according to Real Capital Analytics’ Hotel Capital Trends Quarterly report. That represents the lowest sales volume and largest percentage drop of any property type during the first half of the year. On a worldwide scale, global hotel sales dropped 68 percent. Interestingly enough, average pricing per unit reached its highest point ever–$175,000 per unit. That is largely attributable to sales of high-end,…