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I saw this over the weekend in Time Square. Poor Uncle Sam. If you want post your own also. Make it like the youtube thread.
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I’m a big fan of the Grands Chantiers section of Montreal 2025. I’ve always been someone who believes the public sector should lay out the general framework and the ground rules for an area – the master plan – and that once that is complete it’s then the private sectors time to shine and help implement that plan through various firms' fields of expertise. That being said what happens when the majority of the various elements of Montreal’s “Quatre Grands Chantiers” are approved and are well into the development stage. What’s next? I have several suggestions I will be posting in the near future. Here is the first. I’d love it if others posted their own ideas as well. Grand Chantier: LES ABORDS DE L'AUTOROUTE 720 This is not so much a district as much as it’s the meeting point of several districts; an area with lots of development opportunities and potential for improvement: Such as: -Les Diamants -Le Mackay -1175 Mackay -1300 René-Lévesque Ouest -The development of the Overdale lot -1500 René-Lévesque Ouest -The Hotel Maritime redevelopment -The redevelopment of 1800 René-Lévesque Ouest -The redevelopment of the Franciscans property -The redevelopment of the Montreal Children’s facilities once it leaves for the Glen Yards -The redevelopment of the Dow Planetarium -La Cité du commerce électronique - Place III -The Cadillac Fairview - Gare Bonaventure project. -The creation of a new square in commemoration of Chaboillez Square near Griffintown -Covering the side of the 720 facing Saint-Antoine west of Lucien L’Allier with ivy or some other type of greenery to make the streetscape more appealing for area residents Just to name a few
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(Courtesy of The Montreal Gazette)
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Classement par "artiste". Mis à jour continuellement. Membres MtlURB Vision : réseau de métro du futur Vision : skyline du futur Jultrep Vision Projet Espace l'Assomption joecannes Vision Santiago Calatrava Bridge For Montreal JFrosty Vision du Métro de Montréal Paul Laurendeau Archi. Vision Habitation Mentana Vision Habitation Denise-Morelle Vision Habitation Drolet-Villeneuve Vision Habitation Premières Lettres Horg Man Vision rue duluth pietoniere CFurtado Vision Skyline 2012-2013 de Montréal internationalx Vision théâtre du Cirque du Soleil WestAust Vision bassin Peel nord Vision retour à Mirabel Vision 1300 Rene-Levesque: Le Prisme 45 étages Vision Le Seville - 16 étages Vision "Times Square" de Montreal rosey12387 Vision Côte-St-Luc et environs Vision Nouveau campus de l'UdM Vision Boulevard Jean-Lesage: Rive-Sud Vision Nouveaux Grands Chantiers - Montreal danick_o Vision Transport en commun Laval/Montréal/Rive-Sud en 2050 jesseps Vision élargissement des voies routières de Montréal Vision nouvelles liaisons ferroviaires Vision Boul. de la Vérendrye Canal Robert Keaghan Jennings Vision Proposition modeste et réaliste pour le futur des transports à MTL MTLskyline Vision 70 étages, Tour MTL Inc Elix Vision 2 CIBC géantes Cataclaw Vision recouvrement de l'autoroute Ville-Marie Vision Tour CC | 72 étages Vision revitalisation d'un quartier Vision Tour MtlUrb - 172m, 40 étages, 2009 Vision Tour Sansnom - 85 étages Vision lien routier Longueuil--St-Hubert Vision Tour Diamand Vision développement majeur Longueuil Vision développement majeur rive-sud Vision Le Phoenix 301m, 70 étages 2010 Vision Longueuil 2020 Vision Longueuil 2050 Vision tramway et métro sur la rive-sud Vision nouveau Pont Champlain Vision développement riverain rive-sud Vision 2-22 Sainte-Catherine Vision Cité du pont Vision réseau tramway - métro Laval-Mtl-Rive-sud du futur Vision rond-point à Longueuil Vision 1250 Stanley - Tour Cypress - 48 étages Vision Centre d'Achat / Shopping Mall Vision Tour CH | 46 étages | 191m Vision Quartier Central | Brossard Vision Carrefour Pie-IX et Henri-Bourassa Vision Échangeur Côte des Neiges / Remembrance Monctezuma Vision Échangeur Côte des Neiges / Remembrance MTLskyline Vision autoroute Québec - Maine - Nouveau-Brunswick Vision métro ligne 3 - rouge Newbie Vision nouvelles poubelles publiques sebastien Vision piste cyclable boulevard de Maisonneuve - canal Lachine - berges du Saint Laurent Gilbert Vision Metropolitan Montréal 32 étages 135 mètres 2010 Vision Hydro-Québec - Rénovation Vision Hôtel Chaboillez 35 étages 130 mètres 2010 Vision redéfinition des limites de hauteur Vision Griffintown Vision Parc Olympique - Mémoire du collectif Aimer Montréal etienne Vision tour aluminium 48 étages Fortier Vision Métro de Québec Vision Réso Franks Vision prolongement de l'autoroute 640 OursNoir Vision Revitalisation square ÉTS pedepy Vision Mt-Royal à 300 m. Vision Expansion du métro dans le Mile-End Vision Square Dorchester et Place du Canada Vision navette gratuite centre-ville Vision réseau de métro du futur Vision deviateur rues St-Hubert/Resther & avenue Mont-Royal Vision complexe sports & sciences de Montréal Vision rues mixtes Vision ilots musicaux Vision jeanne-mance / uqam / quartier latin brubru Vision redéveloppement des terrains vagues de Mile-End Vision revitalisation de la carrière Francon Vision Silo no 5 Vision Musée de l'histoire industriel de Montréal Vision Ruelle Cyclable Vision Parc Laurier steve_36 Vision redéveloppement vieux forum / musée du sport Le Philosophe Vision Musée du Cirque du Soleil Vision Ste-Catherine, entre le Village et le QdS Architectes et autres sources externes au forum CANADIAN COMPETITION CATALOGUE Vision logements HLM au centre-ville Sébastien-Paul Desparois / Céline Mertenat / Simon Goulet / Benoit Muyldermans Vision Tour HLM centre-ville 20 étages Federico Bizzotto, c.a., e.e.e., associé Développement d'Arcy-McGee Mario Brodeur, architecte, consultant en patrimoine Jacques Des Rochers, conservateur de l'art canadien, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal Benoît Dupuis, architecte associé, acdf* architecture/urbanisme/intérieur Maxime Frappier, associé, acdf* architecture/urbanisme/intérieur Jacques Lachapelle, architecte, historien de l'architecture, Université de Montréal Vision Tour Parc - Pins 40 étages LEMAYMICHAUD Architecture Design Vision Tour Centreville ~ 58 étages MrArchitecturedesign Vision 101 St-Viateur (nouveaux locaux d'Ubisoft) Gaétan Frigon Vision déménagement du port de Montréal Dessau Vision Square Chaboillez et Planétarium Dow par Dessau
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http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=4734159
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Étant donné qu'il n'y a pas beaucoup d'activité dans le développement de Montréal j'ai pensé faire une liste des projets potentiels (approuvés, proposés et/ou revés) et de demander quels seraient les projets souhaitables pour donner plus de ''lustre'' à la ville. Voici une liste fort incomplète mais qui donne une idée de ce qui est sur la table:
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Copenhaguiser Montréal, qu’ossa donne? MATHIAS MARCHAL MÉTRO 17 février 2010 20:42 http://www.journalmetro.com/linfo/article/455254--copenhaguiser-montreal-qu-ossa-donne Avez-vous vu comment Times Square, à New York, a été repensé l’été dernier pour devenir une gigantesque place publique? C’est en partie grâce au célèbre architecte danois Jan Gehl. Deux de ses disciples de Copenhague sont à Montréal cette semaine, à l’invitation du Centre d’écologie urbaine. Voici un échantillon de leurs pistes de réflexion pour que le citoyen se réapproprie l’espace public et que Montréal se «copenhaguise». À pied En repensant la configuration de la rue Broadway, à New York, les piétons et les cyclistes ont pu reprendre un peu de place aux voitures. C’est à Times Square que la transformation est la plus frappante. «Avant, 81 % de l’espace était occupé par la route, ce qui est ironique pour un endroit qui s’appelle "Times Square"», explique Kristian Villadsen. L’été dernier, le square avait regagné 60 % de la superficie, grâce à de magnifiques terrasses permettant aux piétons de profiter du lieu. À Montréal, ce genre d’initiative, qui a déjà cours dans le Village gai pendant l’été, pourrait très bien se déplacer vers le Plateau. Sur l’avenue du Mont-Royal, les terrasses des restaurants qui ouvrent l’été, habituellement sur le trottoir, seraient cette fois installées sur des places de stationnement. L’arrondissement envisage aussi d’aménager une place publique autour de la station de métro Mont-Royal. À Vélo «Croyez-le ou non, mais il y a 40 ans, il y avait peu de cyclistes à Copenha gue, lance Kristian Villadsen, chef de projet chez Gehl Architects. Aujourd’hui, 37 % se déplacent à vélo pour aller au travail, 33 % en transport en commun et 23 % en voiture.» Chez nous, 67 % des travailleurs de la métropole vont travailler en voiture. Comment y est-on arrivé? En construisant plusieurs centaines de kilomètres de pistes cyclables en site proté gé et en s’arrangeant pour qu’il soit plus rapide de se déplacer à vélo qu’en auto. Là-bas, certains feux de circulation passent au vert six secondes plus tôt pour les cyclistes et le transport en commun. Sur certaines pistes, on a même synchronisé les feux pour que les cyclistes qui roulent à 20 km/h profitent du vert tout au long de leur trajet. Une majorité de cyclistes Un chiffre qui devrait intéresser les Montréalais : 70 % des cyclistes copenha guois garderaient leur vélo l’hiver. «C’est sûr que nos hivers sont un peu moins neigeux, mais ils sont quand même assez proches des vôtres, prétend Kristian Villadsen. Le secret, c’est qu’on a bâti une culture du vélo et que, dans la mesure du possible, les pistes cyclables et les trottoirs sont dégagés avant les rues.» En Patins À Montréal comme à Copenhague, on a aménagé plusieurs patinoires qui, en plus de favoriser l’exercice, créent de l’animation. Mais pourquoi toujours patiner en rond? À Copenhague l’hiver, sur le lac Soerne, on aménage une piste pour ceux qui aiment faire de la distance. Une idée qui serait tout à fait applicable sur la piste cyclable qui longe le canal Lachine et qui n’est généralement pas déneigée l’hiver. En la préparant et en l’entretenant comme une patinoire, on aurait l’hiver une im*mense piste patinable de plus de 12 km entre le centre-ville et le sud-ouest de l’Île. -------------- Copenhaguisation 101 : Le développement urbain que prône l’architecte Jan Gehl consiste à placer le citoyen au cœur des projets d’urbanisme. «La méthode traditionnelle consiste à construire un édifice, d’appeler ensuite un paysagiste et d’espérer que la population s’appropriera l’endroit, explique l’architecte Kristian Villadsen. Nous, on fait l’inverse, on conçoit des lieux qui favorisent d’abord les échanges.» Ce n’est pas un hasard d’ailleurs si son cabinet emploie une anthropologue diplômée de l’Université McGill, Louise Kielgast. -------------- Fait vécu: Montréal peut mieux faire Pascoal Gomes travaille au Centre d’écologie urbaine, l’organisme qui a invité les deux architectes danois. Il a vécu mercredi une situation qui montre le chemin qui reste à parcourir à Montréal pour rejoindre Copenhague. «Je sortais du métro Parc pour rejoindre l’arrêt de bus. Comme il n’y a pas de passage piéton qui y mène, j’ai traversé directement la rue. Il y avait au moins huit policiers qui verbalisaient les piétons et j’ai récolté une amende de 37 $, déplore-t-il. La répression des piétons, alors que c’est la Ville qui ne crée pas la signalisation adéquate pour leur faciliter la vie, ça n’est surtout pas ça, la Copenha gui sation!» --------------
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New York set to ban cars from Times Square NEW YORK, May 24 (UPI) -- Many New York residents and tourists alike say the city's plan to ban cars from traveling through Times Square is a great idea. The New York Daily News said Saturday some people have applauded the plan to ban all traffic from Broadway between 42nd and 47th Street in Times Square starting Sunday night. "I think it's going to bring more people and they'll be more comfortable," local food vendor John Galanopolous said of the plan, which will also ban cars from 33rd and 35th Street in Herald Square. Pittsburgh resident Bill Buettin agreed the traffic ban in those areas would make pedestrian travel easier in New York. "Not having to worry about crosswalks and stop lights makes it that much easier," the tourist told the Daily News. But at least one New York resident was less than supportive of the plan, which he feels could hinder the city's numerous motorists. "There's going to be more traffic. It's not going to work," taxi driver Rafi Hassan told the Daily News. "Most of our customers are here."
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Copier-Coller du Site AppleInsider.com Apple Inc. is finalizing plans for its first Canadian flagship shop, a spacious multi-story retail outlet to be located in the heart of Montreal, a source tells AppleInsider. The Cupertino-based gadget maker is reported to have secured some 9,300 square feet of space along the 1300 block of Rue Ste-Catherine Ouest, where it plans to heavily alter -- but not raze -- an existing structure. According to a set of initial design plans, the company has proposed that the ground floor of the building be raised and that existing column structures on the property be relocated. Plans also call for the building to receive a new roof and stainless steel facade. On the interior, Apple's proposal calls for two stories of retail sales space to be joined by a trademark glass staircases, similar to the one found at its SoHo, New York and Regent Street, London locations. Office space, a back-end stock room, and bathroom facilities will consume a portion of the 9,300 square feet, trimming the retail sales area to approximately 8,000 -- leaving the Montreal location a couple thousand square feet short of Apple's Manhattan-based shops. Although Apple presently operates four retail locations in Canada, none of the stores are designated as flagship locations. Montreal would represent just the 10th high-profile location for Apple, joining its eight existing flagships spread across the U.S., U.K., and Japan, as well as a ninth under development in Manhattan's Meatpacking district. Apple's flagship shops have been strategically placed in the world's most densely populated shopping districts and are conceived as projections of the Apple brand with their architecture and interior design. Each year, the company spends an undisclosed sum on marketing costs for the the high-profile locations, ranging up to $10 million. Unexpected delays withstanding, Apple hopes to begin operating out of the Montreal location during the summer or early fall of next year, according to the source.
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New Skyscraper Filling With Jobs From Other Buildings
un sujet a posté LindbergMTL dans Discussions générales
CINCINNATI -- The latest addition to Cincinnati's skyline seems to defy the recession plaguing the nation. Great American Tower at Queen City Square is a $400 million mega-building that will re-shape downtown. "We work in 43 cities around the country right now. This is the only high-rise we have currently going on in any of those cities," Turner Construction Vice President Ken Jones said. "This is a huge deal." The skyscraper is more than a year from opening and already it is 80 percent pre-leased. But so far, all the people moving to the building are coming from other buildings in downtown Cincinnati. "They need to stop right there in terms of stealing tenants from other buildings," Cincinnati Business Journal publisher Doug Bolton said. Bolton said the move of Great American Financial And Frost Brown Todd from their current offices to the new building in the eastern part of the central business district could cripple the restaurants and stores that have built their livelihood around Fountain Square. "There's a huge concern, and people have described it to me as this giant sucking sound out of the core of downtown," Bolton said. But the president of Downtown Cincinnati Incorporated said he sees the soon-to-be-empty office space as an opportunity to attract new companies and new revenue to the city. "At the end of the day, if there isn't growth, if there isn't more, then, really, we are, in fact, all spinning our wheels," David Ginsburg said. The developer estimates Great American Tower is saving or creating almost 9,000 jobs in Cincinnati. That number includes a prediction that Great American Financial would have moved out of Cincinnati if it wasn’t able to consolidate its offices. Copyright 2009 by WLWT.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Video of the news story and building here: http://www.wlwt.com/money/21795311/detail.html -
Read more: http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=2260755#ixzz0XpBuycRO
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News On the March: New York City Office Market
un sujet a posté LindbergMTL dans Discussions générales
Macklowe’s Worldwide Plaza Successor Wrestles Towering Dilemma By David M. Levitt Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Real estate investor Peter Duncan, who negotiated the nation’s biggest property deal of the year in buying Manhattan’s Worldwide Plaza, is now in charge of a skyscraper that’s 40 percent empty. The Italian marble south lobby of Worldwide Plaza, the gateway to 14 vacant floors, is quiet. It’s one reason Duncan, president of George Comfort & Sons Inc., was able to buy the 49- story building in July for $590 million, two years after it sold for almost three times as much. The purchase price may allow Duncan to undercut the rents competitors charge as he leases his 709,000 square feet. Manhattan has 59 million feet of available offices, according to brokerage Colliers ABR, the most since June 1996, and rents for the best space are down more than 30 percent from their peak last year. Duncan’s outcome may help investors determine whether it’s time to resume buying New York office buildings. “They are one of the first waves of risk-takers here in this asset recovery business,” said Robert Freedman, executive chairman of New York-based brokerage FirstService Williams. “They made a great deal if they can manage this risk.” Pinched by scarce credit and the recession, New York City may hit a record low dollar value for commercial property sales this year. Manhattan office properties have lost almost 47 percent of their value since 2007, more than any other major U.S. city, according to the Concord Group, a consulting firm in Newport Beach, California. Investor Signal If Comfort and its partners lease the space at 825 Eighth Ave. quickly, it will be a “signal for investors” that could increase their appetite for risk, said Jim Frederick, a principal at Colliers ABR, a New York-based commercial broker. Not a single lease for more than 250,000 square feet in Midtown has been signed this year, according to CB Richard Ellis Group Inc., the world’s biggest commercial brokerage. Tenants have plenty to choose from. Just eight blocks south at Eighth Avenue and 42nd Street is 11 Times Square, a new 1.06 million square-foot office tower that’s almost finished and has no tenants. Just up the street is 3 Columbus Circle, the former Newsweek Building, where 417,000 square feet is available, according to Colliers. Six blocks southeast lies the former New York Times building, where all 644,000 square feet is up for lease. Comfort’s advantage may be price. The partnership paid $370 a square foot for Worldwide Plaza, while competitors paid $1,000 a foot or more for similar buildings at the height of the five- year U.S. property boom. Rents Fall “No longer will they have to get $80 or $90 or $100 a square foot” for a lease, Robert Sammons, research director at Colliers, said in an Aug. 20 interview on Bloomberg Television. “They can do deals in the 30s, 40s or 50s now, which is going to help start to move the market.” Rents for so-called Class A Midtown offices averaged $68.38 a square foot at the end of September, according to Colliers data. The law firm Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP agreed to pay almost to $100 a foot when it renewed its 600,000-square-foot lease at Worldwide Plaza in 2007, a person involved in the transaction said at the time. “I look at the vacancy as being an opportunity,” said Duncan, whose company owns or has interests in eight other New York office properties. “The success of any deal is dependent on how well occupied you keep your buildings.” Comfort, a closely held family-owned company, and its partners set aside “in excess of $100 million” to cover leasing costs, including maintenance and a reserve to renovate for new occupants, Duncan said in an interview. He declined to disclose the building’s expected first-year yield, or capitalization rate. Higher Vacancies The vacancy rate for the highest-quality offices in Manhattan was 12 percent in September, near the highest in more than 12 years, Colliers said. Tenants haven’t been in a better position since the mid-1990s, when the market was coming out of a recession, Sammons said. Duncan’s challenge is the latest for a skyscraper that helped gentrify part of the west side in the 1980s. Built on the old 50th Street site of Madison Square Garden, it was the first sizable skyscraper built that far west in Manhattan. A PBS program, “Skyscraper: the Making of a Building,” documented the construction. William Zeckendorf Jr. developed the property. It was the first New York commission for Skidmore Owings & Merrill architect David Childs, who went on to design the nearby Time Warner Center. Macklowe’s Purchase Developer Harry Macklowe purchased Worldwide Plaza and six other Manhattan buildings from Blackstone Group LP in February of 2007, the same day Blackstone bought billionaire Sam Zell’s Equity Office Properties Trust in what was then the biggest leveraged buyout in history. A year later, Macklowe lost all seven properties to lender Deutsche Bank AG when he was unable to refinance almost $7 billion in short-term debt he used to acquire the buildings. Deutsche Bank financed a $470 million loan for Comfort’s group to make the purchase. The partners include RCG Longview, an investment firm whose founders include former Shearson Lehman Brothers Inc. Chief Executive Officer Peter Cohen; and DRA Advisors LLC, a New York-based sponsor of real estate investment funds. “We wanted to put together a group that has been through the wars a little bit,” Duncan said. The partners “are all long-term holders of real estate.” The floors they need to rent make up the second-biggest empty space in the city: 14 stories at the base of the tower vacated in June by the advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather. Empty Space While some floors have been stripped to the fireproofing, traces of the ad agency remain. The walls on the fourth floor are covered with artwork, including a red and black 1960s-style pop-art mural that reads: “Next time there’s a war for sale, it’s alright to say no thank you.” Representatives of accounting firm Deloitte LLP have spoken with Comfort about taking some of the space, according to two people familiar with the discussion. They declined to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the space. Jonathan Gandal, a spokesman for Deloitte, declined to comment. “We’ve had lot of people look at the available space,” Duncan said. “We are actually discussing having active negotiations with certain tenants. And that and $2.25 gets you a ride on the subway.” To contact the reporter on this story: David M. Levitt in New York at dlevitt@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: October 23, 2009 00:01 EDT http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aJG1.l7fPiik -
New Year's Eve party à la Times Square in Montreal Thu, 2009-09-10 17:37. Shuyee Lee Montreal is getting its own Times Square-style Rockin' New Year's Eve. Media company Astral Media is organizing a big New Year's Eve party this year on McGill College Avenue downtown. It'll be an annual affair complete with live music and comedy, activities, as well as sound and light performances. The Big Astral Countdown for Mira event will help raise money for the Mira Foundation, which provides over 180 guide dogs and assistance to people with mental, visual, hearing and motor disabilities. Astral Media owns CJAD 800 which will broadcast the event live, along with its sister stations CHOM 97.7 and Virgin Radio 96. http://www.cjad.com/node/990235
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Canada : Office vacancy rates to go even higher: report
un sujet a posté ErickMontreal dans L'actualité
Office vacancy rates to go even higher: report Financial Post Published: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 Neither Calgary nor Toronto can expect any immediate relief, as both will see millions of square feet of new supply coming onto the market over the next 24 to 36 months (seven million for Calgary and five million for Toronto). Sean DeCory/National Post Neither Calgary nor Toronto can expect any immediate relief, as both will see millions of square feet of new supply coming onto the market over the next 24 to 36 months (seven million for Calgary and ... OTTAWA -- Vacancies in Canada's office market have surged to 8.5% and will climb toward levels not seen since the dot-com bust earlier this decade before finally levelling out, commercial broker Avison Young said in a report Wednesday. "The vacancy rate will definitely be trending up in the coming quarters," said Bill Argeropoulos, director of research at Avison Young. "We're not sure if it will breach the recent high of 11.5% in 2003, but we do see the vacancy perhaps breaching the 10% barrier in the coming quarters and perhaps into 2010, largely because of new supply coming into the market." Furthermore, said Avison Young chief executive Mark Rose: "The global financial crisis has had a significant impact on market psychology, creating inertia and paralyzing decision-making. Recovery . . . will occur only when corporate profits return, unemployment rates drop and decision-makers believe were are trending upwards." In the past 12 months, vacancies have climbed more than two percentage points from the 6.1% rate of mid-year in 2008, and Mr. Argeropoulos said it will likely be the end of 2011 before national rates begin to level off. Mississauga holds the distinction of having the highest office vacancy rate in the country at 10.8%. Toronto experienced the highest annual change among eastern cities, climbing from 6.6% to 9.6% in the past 12 months, a three-year high. Calgary, meanwhile, underwent the highest change in vacancy rates among western cities, soaring from 3.6% in mid-2008 to 9.3% by mid-2009. Neither Calgary nor Toronto can expect any immediate relief as both will see millions of square feet of new supply coming onto the market over the next 24 to 36 months (seven million for Calgary and five million for Toronto). Both will definitely surpass the 10% vacancy rate in the months ahead, Mr. Argeropoulos said. Calgary also saw the largest plunge in rental rates, with downtown Class A space collapsing to $30 per square foot from $46. This is still the most expensive in the country, however, along with Edmonton, where prices are also at $30. Nationally, lease rates for downtown Class A space fell to $22 per square foot in mid-2009 from $25 the year before. Prices ranged from a low of $13 in Quebec City to Calgary and Edmonton's $30. Avison's mid-year office survey tallies results for 12 regions across the country. Canwest News Service ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Unused office space up 75% in Q2: report Garry Marr, Financial Post Published: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 The amount of unused office space business put on the sublease market grew by almost 75% last quarter from a year ago, a further indication of the crumbling economy. CB Richard Ellis Ltd. said more than 7.7 million square feet of office space came back into the market across the country, an increase from the more than 4.4 million that hit the market in the same quarter a year ago. The sheer size of the increasing sublease market drove the national vacancy rate to 8.3% from 6.4% a year ago. "The deepening recession has prompted businesses across the country to continue to identify ways to trim overhead and pare back their need for phantom space," said John O'Bryan, vice-chairman of CB Richard Ellis. "The trend of doing with less right now is especially evident in Canada's major office markets. However, it is important to note that the commercial real estate market typically lags behind the residential market by a few months, so we are simply now experiencing the slowdown that other markets went through in the last quarter." Mr. O'Bryan said the Canadian market continues to fare better than United States markets where vacancy rates reached 15.9% at the end of the first quarter. Canadian vacancy rates were only 7.5% at the end of the first. "If we were in the U. S. right now looking at a national occupancy rate of 91.7%, there would be a widespread sense of optimism regarding the health of the country's commercial market." But there are clear signs across the country that the office market has been hit hard by the economy with vacancies rising everywhere. In Vancouver, the beaten-down technology and resource sectors helped drive sublet activity. The effect was to push the vacancy rate from 5.6% to 7.8%. The once-airtight Calgary office market has sprung a leak as lower oil prices have led many of Alberta's junior oil and gas companies to cut their space. In the second quarter, Calgary's vacancy rate rose to 10.2% from 4.6% a year ago. CB Richard Ellis says it will rise to 20% by the end of 2009. Vacancies in Toronto, the largest office market in the country, rose to 8.4% in the second quarter, up from 6.7% a year ago. CB Richard Ellis expects rates to continue to rise in 2009 and 2010. In Montreal, softness in the commercial market drove vacancy rates up from 8.5% to 9.7%, on a year-over-year basis. The real estate company said cost-containment measures by large tenants have impacted the market. Backed by the federal government, Ottawa is proving to have the best office market in the country. The overall vacancy rate grew to 5.1%, only a slight jump from the 4.9% a year ago. Ottawa's suburban offices, which are more dependent on the private sector, were hit harder than the government-dominated downtown core. gmarr@nationalpost.com Here's the complete report : http://www.avisonyoung.com/library/pdf/National/MidYear09-National-Office.pdf -
Toronto a suburb? It's begun RENÉ JOHNSTON/TORONTO STAR Apr 08, 2009 04:30 AM Vanessa Lu city hall bureau chief Toronto is at risk of becoming a bedroom community for the booming 905 regions, warns a new report by the Toronto Board of Trade. Cities that were once outer suburbs are now growing employment areas as more businesses have pulled up stakes in the downtown core for cheaper real estate. Meanwhile, the city itself faces increasing disparity between the wealthy, who buy downtown condos where factories once stood, and the poor who inhabit the increasingly deprived inner suburbs. So Toronto remains an attractive place to live, but struggles to keep up with its neighbours on key economic indicators such as employment, productivity and income growth. "It's a tale of two cities," president and CEO Carol Wilding said at yesterday's release. "We see the reverse, or mirror images, from the city proper versus the 905." Wilding agreed with a release for the report that said Toronto has become a "magnet for living, while the surrounding municipalities form the more powerful economic engine." "If you stand back, the data shows that at this point," said Wilding. "Given the employment growth that isn't there in the city centre – yet it is a hugely attractive place – suggests the doughnut effect. ... People flock to and live in the city ... but are actually travelling outwards in the region for employment opportunities." The split between the two regions is reflected in a prosperity scorecard that compares the Toronto region with 20 others around the world on 25 important indicators. While the Toronto region scored very well overall – tying for fourth place with Boston, New York and London, but behind Calgary, Dallas and Hong Kong – the findings show a growing gap between the city itself and surrounding communities. (The study is based on the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area, a tract that includes most of the GTA except Burlington and Oshawa.) If the 416 and 905 area codes were ranked separately, the suburban regions would have taken second place on the world list – after Calgary – and Toronto would have fallen into the bottom half. But Wilding credited Toronto city hall for taking steps to counteract the trend and boost economic growth, including a policy of gradually shifting more of the property tax burden from commercial and industrial property onto homeowners. "I think from a policy perspective, we've put in place many of the changes the data would have suggested we do ... two years ago. We didn't wait," Mayor David Miller said yesterday, reacting to the report. However, he said, "Toronto starts from a very good place" as Canada's financial capital and the third biggest centre of information communications technology in North America. "Council adopted a strategy two years ago because we didn't believe we could take success for granted," he added. "And I think the underlying data says we took the right step and we're on the right path." He noted both the tax rate cuts and the creation of two new agencies, Build Toronto and Invest Toronto, to lure business and investment to the city. Given that traffic is now jammed both ways on the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway in the morning rush hour, it hardly comes as a surprise that employment growth has been strong outside Toronto proper. But the data shows the gap is "far larger than people would have expected it to be," Wilding said. Employment in the suburban regions grew by an average of 2.8 per cent a year between 2002 and 2007, compared with 1.1 per cent in the city of Toronto. In fact, most of the employment growth over the past two decades has occurred outside Toronto. "That's a significant divide. Until we start to narrow that, then we aren't serving the interests of the region as a whole," Wilding said. Average real GDP growth during the same period was just 1.2 per cent in Toronto – compared with 4.2 per cent in neighbouring cities. After-tax income growth over the same period was 3.5 per cent in Toronto, compared with 5.9 per cent outside. Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone said the report's data is already a couple of years old and doesn't reflect recent actions the city has taken to stem the flow of jobs. The report cites a 10.2 per cent growth in non-residential building permits in the surrounding regions, versus only 8.9 per cent in the city. But Pantalone pointed out that today, 4 million square feet of office buildings are under construction in Toronto, compared with only 1.5 million square feet in the 905. "That's a historical reversal. It shows those policies are working," he said. "We have established new trend lines to correct that. And it seems to be working." As Miller pointed out, the report isn't all bad news for the city. It notes that Toronto is "a study in contrasts, struggling to keep pace on the economic fundamentals but scoring well on all the attributes of an attractive city." Using research from the Conference Board of Canada, the report points out the city is doing well on indicators such as commuter travel choices, a young labour force, university education and percentage of jobs in the cultural industry. New infrastructure investments by the province, notably in transit, will also help make Toronto more competitive. Some 44 per cent of Toronto residents walk, bike or take transit to work, while only 13 per cent of residents outside Toronto do. One of Toronto's biggest advantages is its diversity, with immigrants making up close to half of the city's residents. That puts it at Number 1 among the 21 global cities, above Los Angeles at 41 per cent and New York at 36 per cent. But Board of Trade chair Paul Massara warned that the talent that exists among newcomers must not be squandered – and their integration has to be ensured. "It's absolutely essential that we get this productive part of the economy working and enhance that," Massara said, noting governments have been working to improve settlement services. With files from Paul Moloney
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Voici ma propre vision pour le 2-22 Sainte-Catherine. Features include: 1- Glass-clad building (on all sides!!) 7 storeys with a "pinch in the middle" design intended to harmonize the first 4 floors with the surrounding buildings and to make the LCD news ticker stand out more. 2- Bar/terrasse sur le toit 3- Nightclub au 4ème étage 4- Three storey atrium with tourist info, cultural facilities, ticket booths, etc. 5- LCD news/info tickers, info about upcoming shows, also to give a bit of a mini-times square gradiose feel to everything 6- TV géants 7- Three remaining floors for offices, music rooms, quartier des spectacles administration, whatever, etc. Qu'est ce que vous en pensez? J'aurais du me coucher à 11pm mais depuis minuit je travail la dessus.. j'ai trop eu le fun Ok, là c'est dodo... si le feedback est positif, je vais peut-être continuer plus demain... sinon ben, voilà
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New York City streets go green New York City transportation head, Janette Sadik-Kahn is taking it to the streets, literally. The visionary transportation planner, who has been on the job for two years and was tapped by the Obama Administration for a top post, is serious about sustainability. And, while her first attempt to reduce the city’s carbon footprint by proposing congestion pricing for those who came in to the city by car went over like a lead balloon, her current efforts to green the city’s streets by reinventing car lanes as public space has carried favor with just about everyone. Her latest project, dubbed “Green Lights for Broadway”, aims to transform the city’s iconic car-clogged thoroughfare into a pedestrian oasis. As the only street in Midtown that is off the grid, Broadway poses significant traffic problems and safety issues along its length. “Green Lights for Broadway” aims to reduce traffic congestion through Midtown with targeted improvements focused at Times Square and Herald Square that will speed cross town traffic and replace car lanes with public space where pedestrians can lunch or relax in the middle of the street. Broadway is just one of many areas of the city that is being “pedestrianised” by Sadik-Kahn. Another intiative to green the city steets is the Plaza Program which began last year aiming to put all New Yorkers within a 10-minute walk of a park. Under this program, streets throughout the city are being reinvented as public plazas, as, for example, at Madison Square Park where 45,000 sq ft of public space was recently added in the middle of Madison Avenue and in nearby Chelsea where a car lane was transformed into a plaza with planters and a bike lane. While these efforts will no doubt make the city more liveable, the Mayor and the Transportation Commissioner would like to see a Manhattan with fewer cars. As such, the city is tweaking its public transportation system to expand and speed service. While the focus is mainly on adding designated bus lanes and improving ferry service, there may also be a tramway in New York’s future. In the 1990s, while with the Dinkins Administration, Sadik-Kahn tried to build a light rail system on 42nd Street. And though that project died on the vine, the idea of a building a light rail line on 42nd Street is still very much alive. The Institute for Rational Mobility (RUM), an advocacy group, is currently floating a proposal, dubbed “Vision 42” that re-imagines 42nd Street as a landscaped pedestrian mall with a 2.5-mile long light rail line that runs river to river. In a recently released report, RUM indicates the roughly $500 million project would generate $704 million in annual benefit. While that project’s future is yet to be determined, Sadik-Kahn has said she is not opposed to using the dedicated bus lanes initiative as a “back door “ step toward light rail, noting that cities all over the world, like Bogotá Columbia, are working toward a light rail service by reclaiming auto space in this way. Regardless, the city’s green transportation czar is on the case manipulating over 6,000 miles of roadway and 12,000 miles of sidewalks for the betterment of the public. While incomplete, her efforts have led to large increases in cycling as a primary mode of transit, increased ridership on subways and busses, and reduced mortalities amongst bicyclists and pedestrians. Sharon McHugh US Correspondent http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=11479
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London Mansion Hits the Market for $150 Million
un sujet a posté LindbergMTL dans Discussions générales
Posted Apr 13th 2009 6:02PM by Jared Paul Stern Filed under: Estates A mansion in London's posh Belgrave Square has hit the market for £100 million, or about $150 million, tying it with Candy Spelling's The Manor in Beverly Hills for the title of the world's most expensive estate (in terms of current listings). The six-floor, 21,000-sq.-ft. white-stucco-fronted building has 12 bedrooms, 20-ft. ceilings, a basement swimming pool, gym, media room, and every imaginable luxury fitting. The property has been gutted and revamped by Lebanese developer Musa Salem, the London Times reports. Across the Square another house has recently come on the market for £80 million, or about $120 million. The eight-bedroom, 20,000-sq.-ft. house is being sold by Saudi Arabia's Juffali family, following the death of its owner. Belgrave Square is also home to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, the Emir of Dubai, as well as several embassies. The Square was built for the 2nd Earl Grosvenor, later the 1st Marquess of Westminster, in the 1820s and is one of the grandest in London. http://www.luxist.com/ -
March 15, 2009 KEY | SPRING 2009 By JIM LEWIS New York is the capital of glass, the city of windows. Other cities get their gravitas from marble or stone, but New York is made of silica, soda ash and lime, melted to make this vitreous stuff: transparent, translucent and opaque; reflective, tinted, frosted, coated, clear. The slightest shift in the angle of sun fall can hide or reveal entire worlds, and as evening comes the city gradually turns itself inside out — the streets go dark and the buildings open up, offering their rooms like stagelets upon which our little lives are played. 25 Cooper Square: The Cooper Square Hotel Completed: 2009 Architect: Carlos Zapata Developer: Sciame Photo date: Sunday, Jan. 18, 2009 As old as the material is, glass remains a mystery. No one quite knows what goes on, down where the molecules bind — whether it’s a slow-moving liquid, an especially mutable solid or something in between. Still, new compounds appear regularly, with new qualities that promise new possibilities. The substance has never been exhausted, and may yet prove inexhaustible, an endless inspiration to architects and designers as it grows stronger, lighter, clearer and more flexible. 731 Lexington Avenue and 1 Beacon Court: Global headquarters for Bloomberg L.P. and other offices, as well as retail and residences Completed: 2005 Architects: Cesar and Rafael Pelli (Pelli Clark Pelli Architects) Developer: Vornado Realty Trust Photo date: Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009 For this issue, In Sook Kim, an artist with a special interest in intimacy and display, photographed five buildings in Manhattan — chips in the kaleidoscope of the city and homes to some of its most emblematic activities: business, the arts, putting up tourists and, of course, staying in for the night. 405 West 55th Street: The Joan Weill Center for Dance, home of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Completed: 2004 Architect: lu + Bibliowicz Architects L.L.P. Photo date: Friday, Jan. 16, 2009 For each photograph, Kim, who is based in Germany, lit interior rooms with colored gels and arranged the occupants of the buildings in everyday tableaux. She then parked herself across from the buildings with a large-format camera, the glass of her lens facing the glass of the facades, creating portraits of the city as a crystalline beehive, always bright and always busy. 48 Bond Street: Condominium residence Completed: 2008 Architect: Deborah Berke & Partners Architects Developer: Dacbon L.L.C. Photo date: Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/realestate/keymagazine/15KeyGLASS-t.html?ref=keymagazine&pagewanted=print
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Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) -- New York’s biggest banks and securities firms may relinquish 8 million square feet of office space this year, deepening the worst commercial property slump in more than a decade as they abandon a record amount of property. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and industry rivals have vacated 4.6 million feet, a figure that may climb by another 4 million as businesses leave or sublet space they no longer need, according CB Richard Ellis Group Inc., the largest commercial property broker. Banks, brokers and insurers have fired more than 177,000 employees in the Americas as the recession and credit crisis battered balance sheets. Financial services firms occupy about a quarter of Manhattan’s 362 million square feet of office space and account for almost 40 percent now available for sublease, CB Richard Ellis data show. “Entire segments of the industry are gone,” said Marisa Di Natale, a senior economist at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “We’re talking about the end of 2012 before things actually start to turn up again for the New York office market.” The amount of available space may reach 15.6 percent by the end of the year, the most since 1996, according to Los Angeles- based CB Richard Ellis. Vacancies are already the highest since 2004 and rents are down 5 percent, the biggest drop in at least two decades. In 2003, the city had 14.8 million square feet available for sublease. If financial firms give up as much as CB Richard Ellis expects, that record will be broken. ‘Wild Card’ CB Richard Ellis’s figures don’t include any space Bank of America may relinquish at the World Financial Center in lower Manhattan, where Merrill Lynch & Co., the securities firm it acquired last month, occupies 2.8 million square feet. Brookfield Properties Inc., the second-biggest owner of U.S. office buildings by square footage, owns the Financial Center. Merrill “is a wild card right now,” said Robert Stella, principal at Boston-based real estate brokerage CresaPartners. Manhattan’s availability rate -- vacancies plus occupied space that is on the market -- was 12.3 percent at the end of January, up more than 50 percent compared with a year earlier and almost 9 percent from December, according to CB Richard Ellis. Commercial real estate prices dropped almost 15 percent last year, more than U.S. house prices, Moody’s Investors Service said in a Feb. 19 report. The decline returned values to 2005 levels, according to the Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Indexes. SL Green The Bloomberg Office REIT Index fell 25 percent since the start of January, with SL Green Realty, the biggest owner of Manhattan skyscrapers, slumping 50 percent. Vornado Realty Trust, whose buildings include One and Two Penn Plaza in Midtown, has fallen 36 percent. SL Green of New York gets 41 percent of its revenue from financial firms, including 13 percent from Citigroup, according to its Web site. Bank of America plans to give up 530,000 square feet at 9 West 57th St. as it completes a move to 1 Bryant Park. New York- based Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is leaving 1.3 million square feet of offices at 1 New York Plaza and 77 Water St. as it prepares to move to new headquarters near the World Trade Center site. JPMorgan put 320,000 square feet of Park Avenue offices on the market after scooping up rival Bear Stearns Cos. last year along with the company’s 45-story headquarters tower at 383 Madison Ave. Citigroup has put 11 floors, or 326,000 square feet, on the market at the 59-story Citigroup Center at Lexington Avenue and 53rd Street, bank spokesman Jon Diat said in an e-mail. The tower is owned by Mortimer Zuckerman’s Boston Properties Inc. Moving Out “We’ve been having conversations for two and a half years with Citigroup, and it’s been very clear to us that for the right economic transaction, they would move out of virtually any space in midtown Manhattan that they have,” Boston Properties President Douglas Linde said on a conference call last month. Boston Properties is also expecting to receive about 490,000 square feet back from Lehman Brothers at 399 Park Ave. as part of the bank’s liquidation. That space “will be a monumental challenge” to fill, said Michael Knott, senior analyst at Newport Beach, California-based Green Street Advisors. “They’re going to have to really bend over backwards on rate, or make the strategic decision to sit on it for an extended period of time.” Zuckerman said in an interview he doesn’t expect the increase in sublets to be a long-term problem for landlords. “You’re not going to be able to get for the space what you were able to get a year ago,” he said. “But in a year or two, in my judgment, the space will be absorbed.” Future Forecast Landlords must be prepared for a slow recovery, said Di Natale of Moody’s Economy.com. Commercial vacancy rates climbed for almost a year and a half after the last recession ended in late 2001. Still, CB Richard Ellis Tri-State Chairman Robert Alexander said New York’s financial community will regenerate. “In the late ‘80s, we lost Drexel Burnham Lambert and we lost Salomon Brothers, and we lost Thomson McKinnon,” Alexander said. “New York City survived.”
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La récession s'attaque à Broadway Marie-Joëlle Parent 06-02-2009 | 09h58 Le nuage gris de la récession recouvre dorénavant le ciel de Broadway. Des spectacles comme Chicago, Equus ou Shrek The Musical jouent devant des salles à moitié vides. Plusieurs productions comme Hairspray et Grease viennent d'éteindre leurs projecteurs pour toujours. Malgré tout le glamour et les paillettes, le monde du divertissement n'est pas imperméable à la crise économique. Il suffit de déambuler dans le Theatre District de Manhattan ces jours-ci pour le contacter. Plusieurs théâtres situés sur les rues transversales à Broadway sont déserts et placardés d'affiches. «La dernière représentation de Grease a eu lieu le 4 janvier, les billets après cette date doivent être remboursés au point d'achat», est-il inscrit. La scène est plutôt triste. Quand Broadway va mal, c'est toute la ville qui en souffre. C'est une machine énorme qui a engrangé des revenus de 941M$US l'an dernier. Sans compter les retombées pour les hôtels et restaurants. Fermetures en série Même si plusieurs productions comme Billy Elliot ou Wicked attirent encore les foules, d'autres n'ont pas résisté au marasme financier. En tout, 16 spectacles ont fermé leurs portes ces dernières semaines, certaines fermetures étaient prévues, mais huit résultent directement de la situation économique. C'est le cas de Hairspray, Spring Awakening, Gypsy, Spamalot, Boeing-Boeing, Young Frankenstein, 13 et Grease. La plupart de leurs billboards sont encore bien en vue dans les hauteurs de Time Square, signe qu'on ne s'attendait pas du tout à un tel revirement de situation. «Oui c'est plus dur que les autres années. L'an dernier 12 shows ont fermé à cette période-ci, cette année, on parle de 16 shows» admet Drew Hodges, président de SpotCo, agence de publicité spécialisée en théâtre. «La plupart des gens sont plus hésitants avant d'acheter un billet, les temps sont durs. Les familles magasinent avant d'acheter», dit-il. «C'est pourquoi la plupart des billets sont réduits à 50%.» «De plus en plus de productions diminuent leurs prix, il faut remplir les salles» confie un promoteur rencontré près du comptoir de dernière minute TKTS à Time Square. Juste à côté des danseurs de la pièce Chicago dansent autour des touristes malgré le froid tout en donnant des dépliants. Ça frôle la vente sous pression. Tous les moyens sont bons pour faire de la promotion. Il faut dire que Chicago connaît un taux d'occupation de 66% ces jours-ci... Période creuse La production n'est pas la seule à jouer devant des salles à moitié remplies. C'est le cas de Shrek (56%) et Equus (61%) mettant en vedette Daniel «Harry Potter» Radcliffe. Malgré tout le battage médiatique, le spectacle quittera l'affiche le 9 février. Malgré tout, Broadway ne baisse pas les bras. Au contraire, les relationnistes des productions et la Broadway League affichent un optimisme exacerbé. «Le printemps va être incroyable. Il y aura 22 nouveaux spectacles d'ici avril, Broadway est plus fort que jamais» souligne Joe Parotta de Boneau/Bryan-Brown. Du côté du syndicat des acteurs de théâtre, l'Actor's Equity, la panique n'est pas installée. «Les spectacles ferment normalement en janvier, ce n'est pas tellement différent de l'an dernier, les acteurs savent que leur job n'est pas à long terme», dit Maria Somma, porte-parole. La grande question qui hante maintenant MidTown c'est de savoir si les touristes seront au rendez-vous cet été. 51 millions de billets En octobre dernier, le maire Bloomberg a inauguré les nouvelles installations futuristes de Duffy Square, le petit ilot en plein coeur de Time Square qui abrite la populaire billetterie de dernière minute, TKTS. Coût de l'opération : environ 19 M$ US. L'îlot a doublé de superficie et le comptoir à lui seul a coûté plus d'un million, il est recouvert d'une immense estrade rouge en plexiglas. Les lieux sont chauffés, les touristes peuvent donc faire la file plus longtemps. C'est là qu'il se vend le plus de billets au monde. Depuis 1973, 51 millions de billets y ont été vendus, soit l'équivalent de 1,4 milliard de dollars américains dans les poches de l'industrie du divertissement. Depuis le début de janvier cependant, on remarque que les ventes vont moins bien que l'an passé. «C'est évident que c'est dû à la situation économique du pays, mais aussi à la neige» explique David LeShay, porte-parole du Theatre Development Fund. 90% des billets offerts sont vendus à moitié prix. La taxe de service est quant à elle réinvestie dans des programmes pour aider la relève artistique.
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Virgin Megastore in Times Square to Be Replaced by Forever 21
un sujet a posté LindbergMTL dans Hors Sujet
January 15, 2009 By PATRICK McGEEHAN The retailing of recorded music will take another step toward extinction in early April, when the Virgin Megastore in Times Square closes to make room for Forever 21, a popular chain that sells moderately priced clothing. The closing, which was announced to the store’s 200 employees this week, will leave the Virgin store on Union Square as the last Manhattan outpost of a large music chain. The future of that store has not been decided, Simon Wright, the chief executive of Virgin Entertainment Group, said on Wednesday. Stores that sell prerecorded CDs and DVDs have been done in by the popularity of digitized music that can be downloaded from the Internet onto iPods and MP3 players. But Mr. Wright said that the Times Square store, which has about 60,000 square feet of selling space, is not simply a victim of technological progress. It has remained “very, very profitable” by shifting its merchandise toward apparel and electronics, including iPods, he said, adding that those two categories accounted for about 25 percent of sales during the holiday shopping season. “Stores that rely completely on recorded music have a difficult future,” he said, “but we’ve been changing our business quite dramatically.” But the chain’s owners, two big New York-based real estate development companies, saw greater potential in leasing the prime space to Forever 21. The Virgin chain, once part of Sir Richard Branson’s business empire, has been owned since 2007 by the Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust. It comprised 11 stores when it was acquired, but now will be down to just five, two of them in California. Virgin closed other stores late last year. The Times Square space, on the east side of Broadway near 46th Street, will be closed for at least a year before it reopens as Forever 21’s largest location. It will be combined with some adjoining space to create a 90,000-square-foot store that will be triple the size of any of Forever 21’s three current stores in Manhattan, said Lawrence Meyer, a senior vice president of Forever 21. Forever 21 is a Los Angeles-based chain that sells trendy clothing for young women and men. It competes with other moderately priced retailers like H & M and Gap stores. “This is a bigger format,” Mr. Meyer said. “It’s going to be a fashion department store. It’s going to offer a deeper assortment of women’s apparel and men’s apparel.” Mr. Meyer said the recession had not diluted his company’s enthusiasm for making a big splash in an expensive area like Times Square. He declined to specify the rent Forever 21 will pay. “We have been doing O.K. in this environment because we have always given great value to our customers,” Mr. Meyer said. “Our stores are exciting and we want to create an exciting environment in Times Square.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/nyregion/15virgin.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=virgin&st=cse -
À force de cohabiter avec ce trou à rat qu'est l'espace entre l'ÉTS et les nouvelles résidences, j'ai décider de me lancer dans un projet de revitalisation. Donc, dans les 15 dernières minutes, j'ai pris une photo aérienne et je l'ai modifié afin de donner une idée d'un espace plus convivial, tant pour les résidents des alentours que pour les étudiants de l'ÉTS qui n'ont aucun espace vert à squatter pour écouler le temps entre deux cours. Donc, voici une ébauche très sommaire de mon idée! (J'ai fais ça avec paint, j'ai pas de talent en dessin, il faut me pardonner ) Avant: Et après: Pourquoi les stationnements? Parce que ce square est le stationnement extérieur pour ceux qui habitent aux résidences de l'ÉTS. Il serait farfelu de faire disparaitre complètement ces places, donc la relocalisation au pourtour du lot m'apparait comme un compromis acceptable. Il y a aussi un espace, à l'est du lot, qui est hachuré jaune. Cet emplacement est requis par l'épicerie Métro pour permettre aux camions de reculer dans le quai de déchargement.
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NYC : Market’s Troubles Echo in a Building’s Vacant Floors
un sujet a posté ErickMontreal dans Discussions générales
Market’s Troubles Echo in a Building’s Vacant Floors Article Tools Sponsored By By CHARLES V. BAGLI Published: November 9, 2008 The elevators work fine, the views are great, the offices have been refurbished and no one is complaining about rats. In so many ways, the green-tinted, 41-story office tower overlooking Bryant Park seems a desirable address. So why are tenants who rushed to rent space a year ago in the building, at 1095 Avenue of the Americas, rushing to break their leases now? The answer says much about the increasingly precarious state of Midtown Manhattan’s real estate market at a time when once-mighty financial companies like Lehman Brothers are disappearing and the slowing economy is driving the vacancy rate up and commercial rents down. Though the building, once owned by Verizon, just went through a two-year, $250 million makeover, several financial firms that signed leases in 2006 and 2007 say they no longer can afford the rents or the cost of outfitting new spaces. Others are laying off workers or reorganizing their offices and no longer need as much room. The first sign of trouble came over the summer when iStar Financial, a real estate finance company, decided not to move into the 100,000 square feet of space that it had rented on the 36th, 37th and 38th floors. Several weeks later, Metropolitan Life Insurance, whose name is now in block letters over the tower’s front doors, quietly began shopping for tenants to sublease 100,000 square feet of its space in the building, a quarter of what it signed up for in 2006. And last month, Centerline Capital Group, a suddenly struggling commercial property finance and investment company, confirmed that it would not be moving into its 100,000 square feet of space on the third, fourth and fifth floors. The company is negotiating with the landlord, the Blackstone Group, to buy out its lease or to sublet the space, said real estate executives who have been briefed on the talks. The companies signed leases for as much as $132 a square foot, when the market was near its peak. Despite the building’s new glass skin, refurbished space and prime location at the corner of 42nd Street, many brokers say they would be lucky to get $95 a square foot today. The difference would translate into millions of dollars a year. Neither iStar nor MetLife have found any takers. For landlords and brokers, the building has become a closely watched barometer of the commercial real estate market in Midtown, where the mercury is clearly falling. Although the rents being asked have hardly moved, brokers say that landlords are providing a menu of concessions that are substantially reducing the effective price. “It’s definitely a microcosm of the last few years in the New York real estate market,” said Peter Riguardi, president of Jones Lang LaSalle, a real estate brokerage and advising company. The problems at 1095 Avenue of the Americas are not hurting Blackstone so far. The combined unused space of Centerline, MetLife and iStar accounts for roughly one-third of the 1.06 million square feet owned by Blackstone in the building, and the three companies are obligated to pay full rent even if they are unable to sublease the space. Brokers say that Blackstone would require the companies to pay dearly to break their leases. But trouble could emerge if any of the companies tumble into bankruptcy court and stopped paying rent. Other tenants seem to be staying put. Dechert L.L.P., a law firm and the first tenant to sign a lease in 2006, is moving onto floors 25 through 31, and Bank of Scotland is occupying its two floors, 34 and 35. MetLife is moving into its space at the top of the tower, even as it tries to sublease its space in the middle. And Robert Alexander, chairman of the New York office of CB Richard Ellis, the real estate brokerage for the tower, said he had pending deals for two other vacant floors, 32 and 33. “We’re signing smaller deals at premium rents, and we look forward to finishing our leasing program,” he said. Brokers familiar with the space offered by iStar, MetLife and Centerline say competition for tenants in Midtown is growing in part because there is ample renovated space available in other buildings. As a result, many companies are demanding rent concessions from landlords or are refusing to take on the cost of adding walls, carpeting and bathrooms to newly renovated space. “What’s missing right now is the demand for raw space,” said one broker, who requested anonymity because he was active at the former Verizon building and he did not want to alienate the landlords or other brokers. The building was constructed in 1974 with vertical white marble slabs and few windows to house switches and other equipment for New York Telephone, which became Verizon. In 2005, as rents and sales prices for commercial buildings were skyrocketing, the company put the tower on the market, with the exception of 234,000 square feet on Floors 6 through 12. Equity Office Properties, one of the largest commercial real estate owners in the country, won a hotly contested auction with a bid of $506 million, more than Verizon had anticipated. At the time, many analysts suggested that Equity Office had overpaid, especially after the new owner started a $250 million renovation that included replacing the marble exterior with a glass skin. Equity Office, however, was betting that the tower would lure prime tenants and generate rents as high as $90 a square foot. And it was right: Rents escalated even higher as the vacancy rate in Midtown plunged and investors clamored to buy properties. Blackstone bought Equity Office for $39 billion in early 2007, at what turned out to be the height of the market. It sold most of Equity’s New York buildings but held on to 1095 Avenue of the Americas. The firm signed leases last year with Bank of Scotland and Centerline for as much as $150 a square foot, brokers active at the tower said. MetLife’s average effective rent, for floors in the middle and at the top, is about $100 a square foot, or $40 million a year, according to real estate executives familiar with the deal. The insurance giant had moved most of its New York employees to Long Island City in 2002, where rents were as low as $30 a square foot. But in 2006, MetLife reversed course, signing a lease to move about 1,300 employees from Queens into the former Verizon building. But this year, the company reassessed how many employees were actually in the office at any one time and determined that it needed only 9 of the 12 floors it had leased in the tower. So early next year, MetLife plans to formally market three of its floors, said John Calagna, a spokesman for MetLife. Mr. Calagna said that the same number of people who moved into 1095 Avenue of the Americas two years ago, about 1,300, are now “moving to less space.”
