The Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations (RAB) today advised its members to take the necessary steps to prepare for the possibility of a strike by SEIU Local 32BJ, the union representing commercial building service workers, after the Commercial Building Agreement’s expiration.

As part of that preparation, the RAB distributed to its members a comprehensive Preparedness Manual with information on how to minimize operational disruptions should a strike occur.

By Karen Heller,
Halstead Property
Every quarter, the largest Manhattan residential real estate firms gather their internal data and look back on closed sales, average prices, and trends.
Interestingly, the last quarter saw striking accord amongst the firms (including Halstead/Brown Harris Stevens, Corcoran, Stribling, and Prudential Douglas Elliman).
Their conclusion: the Manhattan market is an island of stability in the midst of national and international turmoil, seemingly exempt from the eye-popping year-over-year losses experienced in the rest of the nation.
From U.S. coast to coast, the sad drumbeat of bank foreclosures on homes (and …

Spector Group announced that construction is underway on a new $350 million medical campus at 1500 Waters Place in the Bronx.

Spector has designed the new campus master plan for the development of six new buildings on 50-plus acres, as well as the preservation of five existing buildings.

The project will also include a residential .

Commercial real estate owner/operator Prism Capital Partners, LLC, has broken ground for Phase I at The Parkway Lofts, a high-profile, multi-family adaptive reuse in Bloomfield and East Orange.
The milestone marks the launch of a signature redevelopment for New Jersey, according to Eugene Diaz, a principal partner with Prism.
Located with high visibility on the Garden State Parkway, the master-planned project initially includes the conversion of a 114-year-old, 365,000 s/f, six-story warehouse building into 361 loft-style apartments, and the creation of a three-level parking facility.
At build out, the 14.5-acre site will be …

By Linda O’Flanagan

Brooklyn politicians last week rallied in support of a plan by New York University and Polytechnic Institute to build an applied sciences campus at 370 Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn.
Putting the long-empty former MTA headquarters at 370 Jay Street to use would be a game-changer for Downtown Brooklyn, according to Borough President Marty Markowitz.
Just days after the city announced that Cornell University had won the rights to build a super-school for the sciences on Roosevelt Island, Markowtiz said, “With today’s announcement behind us, let’s now look ahead to …

By Al Barbarino
The Garden State’s office tenants want more than just a side of fries with their office space.

Tenants ranked food service the number one “must have” amenity in an anonymous survey conducted by CBRE last month, followed by a long list of swanky services.

“We’re all spending a lot of time, and more time probably than many of us would like to, at work and in our offices,” said CBRE’s Greg Barkan. “So recruiting and retention of talent is paramount for most corporations. Because of that, quality of life features are becoming much more important.”

Food service took 22.4 percent of the vote, followed by access to public transit, with 16.4 percent.

Imagine walking up to a building and learning about the property inside from a mobile device.
Cushman & Wakefield, the largest privately held commercial real estate services firm in the world, teamed up with AT&T to roll out the new “CWmobile” application, which will be initially used by its commercial real estate brokers in the U.S.
Built on the AT&T Mobile Enterprise Application Platform, CWmobile will help brokers deliver an innovative real estate viewing experience when working with commercial clients.
Benefits include customized, location-based commercial real estate showings. If a client …

CORE Group’s Michael Graves ended the year on a high note closing two big deals within days of each other.
He sold a 1,782 s/f condo at 100 West 18th Street for $2.6 million. Then he followed up that deal with a $1.1 million sale at 100 Jay Street in DUMBO.
The Chelsea apartment building was designed by architect Garrett Gourlay to stand out on the block. The 10-story building with iridescent black brick facades certainly does that.
At the Jay Condominium in DUMBO, it was the stylings of Andre Escobar that turned …

More than half of the brokers working in New York City believe the housing market will get worse before it gets better.

And 85% said the recession has negatively impacted their personal situation, one even claiming it caused her divorce.

The findings are the result of a survey of 200 brokers working in New York City by Entitle Direct, the parent company of EnTitle Insurance Company, a direct-to-consumer title insurance service.

Representatives from the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations (RAB) and Local 32BJ Service Employees International Union will resume talks today (Wednesday) in a bid to reach a new agreement for services workers before their contract expires at midnight December 31.
Officials from both sides have vowed negotiations will go on “round the clock” if necessary.

The talks resume after some city politicians took a swipe at building owners and threw their support behind SEIU 32BJ workers.