By Roslyn Lo
Though they live on opposite ends of the Eastern Starboard, Margarita Sanclemente and Maria Velazquez are inseparable. The two women live in Florida and New York respectively, but chat over the phone multiple times a day, travel with each other, finish each other’s sentences, and complete high-end real estate deals together. Prudential Douglas Elliman’s dynamic duo aren’t just life-long friends—they happen to be a renowned mother and daughter team operating in multiple international markets. Read more...

By Al Barbarino
Six years ago, David Schechtman was sick of locking horns with other lawyers.  So he took a career leap into brokerage.  He called it a “tremendous diversion.” “Very often I found myself advocating for one side only,” he said, about his years as a litigator.  “As a broker, very often you’re working with more than one party to achieve a common goal and it’s not just to espouse one position or another.  It’s a wonderfully refreshing place to be.” Read more...

By Al Barbarino
Inside 365 West 14th Street, three lonesome, white, overhead lights hang over a barren retail space. Further east, a passerby peers through the façade at 46 West 14th Street, uncovering little more than a few empty, wooden shelves inside the now defunct jewelry store, Gem Story. The vacant spaces are hardly gems. A slew of “for rent” signs line West 14th Street, from Fifth Avenue all the way down through the Meatpacking District. Read more...

By Al Barbarino
It was 1995 – another Sunday morning. For a young Brian O’Neill Jr. that meant another cruise around the Philadelphia suburbs with his dad, making frequent stops at open houses and dilapidated properties that his father would later convert into office space. “We would keep driving around the neighborhood and pretty much every open house sign he saw we would have to go in,” O’Neil recalled. “I just remember going to all these old industrial, abandoned sites. I loved it. It was me hanging out with my dad.” Read more...

By Al Barbarino
Unless the city decides to lower the tax rate, property owners can expect to pay higher taxes in 2013. The taxable value of New York City real estate will rise to $845.4 billion in fiscal year 2013, an increase of 3.8 percent over the 2012 figure, tentative figures from the Finance Department show. While the estimate is meant to reflect the improving market, increases within certain property classes don’t appropriately account for changes since the market’s heyday, some real estate officials said. Read more...

Gruzen Samton • IBI Group announced the opening of the new 89,000 s/f Human Ecology Building at Cornell University’s College of Human Ecology. The project was comprised of three main components: a parking garage, a three-story academic/laboratory building, and a commons linking the new facility to adjacent existing college buildings, all linked seamlessly into the topography. Read more...

Rafael E. Cestero, former Commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, has been named by the Community Preservation Corporation (CPC) Board of Directors to serve as President and CEO of the non-profit organization and its for-profit development subsidiary, CPC Resources, Inc. Cestero, 43, succeeds Michael Lappin, who announced his retirement last November after leading the company for 31 years. Read more...

By Liana Grey
Last year, Lisa Lippman, a senior vice president at Brown Harris Stevens, nearly secured a buyer for a $19.5 million listing at 535 West End Avenue, Extell’s prewar-style condo development on the Upper West Side. “The prospective buyer’s money is stuck in the European debt crisis,” Lippman explained. So she and her team continued to market the six-bedroom mansion in the sky. “All sorts of people are looking,” said Lippman, who has overseen a number of sales on the Upper West Side and was named Brown Harris Stevens’ West Side Broker of the year in 2010. Read more...

Manhattan-based owner Hidrock Realty recently announced a deal that will put a 3,500-s/f lounge atop the soon-to-open Courtyard by Marriott, located at 960 Ave. of the Americas. The creation of a well-established operator, the upcoming lounge is slated to open in the third quarter of 2012.
Hidrock’s Steven Hidary, principal, and Robert Kaplan, director of leasing, represented both the tenant and the landlord, 960 Associates, LLC, an affiliate of Hidrock. Read more...

By Al Barbarino
Outer borough condo prices increased year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2011 amid a citywide slump in home sales. Average condo sale prices in Brooklyn and Queens rose by 11 and six percent, reaching $596,000 and $450,000, respectively, according to the latest data from the Real Estate Board of New York. Read more...