By Liana Grey
In early March, Eric Grannis, a lawyer and former teacher, launched a website for apartment hunters with young children. The service, Schoolfisher.com, rates New York’s public elementary schools, and matches families with listings in the zone of their choice. Before the site went live, buyers had to comb through Department of Education data on their own; under fair housing laws, brokers are prohibited from discussing the quality of a neighborhood’s schools.

By Liana Grey

Clothing and accessories chain Fossil has nearly doubled its storefront at the base of Morgan Stanley’s headquarters at 1585 Broadway, annexing an additional 1,500 s/f of space. “They now have over 100 feet of frontage,” said Amira Yunis of Newmark Knight Frank, who represented Fossil in the deal to expand their space to 3,272 s/f. When the fashion company is finished renovating the space this summer, Yunis predicts its sales per s/f will increase. “The added frontage is great for Fossil’s presence in Times Square,” she said. The shop is located across from Hershey’s and M&M World, and adjacent to Starbucks, Sunglass Hut, and the makeup chain Bare Escentuals.

By Liana Grey

Fifteen years ago, Richard Cohan, a broker and retail consultant, brought Sunglass Hut to the corner of 34th Street and Broadway. It was a bold decision for Cohan and his client. At the time, the area around Macy’s was just beginning to emerge from the retail equivalent of the dark ages, and low-end merchants, rather than national fashion outlets, ruled the streets.

By Roslyn Lo

When cancer struck at the heart of Andy Abramson’s family, the CEO of Value Companies, Inc, a real estate development and property management firm, took it personally. In 2007, he co-founded the Cure Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc. (CBCF), a 501(c) 3, non-profit organization, and then enlisted a number of partners to help sponsor charity events. To date, CBCF has raised more than $1.3 million.

The Hive at 55 co-working facility is transforming the Lower Manhattan small business scene.

ShopKeep.com and Aurnhammer LLC, two member businesses, are expanding and have signed leases at 55 Broad Street, while Hive member Roadify, which created a mobile application providing real-time transit updates, won the grand prize in NYC Big Apps 2.0’s software challenge.

By Linda O’Flanagan

Reality television takes another bite out of the real estate biz this week with the launch of the web show “What’s Cooking in Real Estate?” The brainchild of networking impresario Judy Sahagian, the show blends two of the industry’s key ingredients — gossip and food — to create a program that producers hope will ultimately be picked up by cable bigs like HGTV or the Food Network.