By Al Barbarino

With online shopping and remote work stations, members of the Corcoran Sunshine marketing team in charge of the 41-story condominium building at 515 East 72nd Street say there aren’t a whole lot of reasons for residents to leave the property.

Thanks to the sweetened amenity package, completed along with the full renovation of the building in September of last year, there’s something in the building to keep every member of the family busy.

By Al Barbarino

A man with a heavily scarred and burned face, forming a slight, sinister smile and holding up a set of long, sharp, clawed fingers, gazed from under a brown fedora hat upon a room full of unsuspecting real estate professionals.

Freddy Krueger, the fictional character from the film A Nightmare on Elm Street wasn’t recalled from the dead to attend the Urban Land Institute’s 2012 Real Estate Capital Markets

By Al Barbarino

Distress in Europe is shaking fear into even the most high-profile investors and analysts — but there’s still plenty of upside in the land of opportunity.

The European debt crisis tops most lists as the number one drag on the global economy, and it isn’t going away soon, experts said at the 3rd Annual Distressed Debt and Assets Symposium, sponsored by Deloitte and NYU Schack last week (Thursday).

By Al Barbarino

After reclaiming 225 Rector Place from corrupt real estate developer Yair Levy, Related Companies is re-launching the Battery Park property as a luxury condo building with the help of acclaimed hospitality designer Clodagh.

Related, which sold the property to Levy in 2005, bought it back in January of 2011 for $82.8 million after the property fell into receivership and Levy was charged with defrauding apartment owners in the building and not completing renovations.

Mayor Bloomberg’s depature from office could herald a massive drop in infrastructure spending, according to new analysis from New York Building Congress.

After small declines in 2013 and 2014, spending is projected to fall $1.3 billion over the two year period from 2015-16. The $7.2 billion of projected spending in 2016 is a reduction of almost $2 billion from this year and $3.3 billion down from the 2010 peak.

City-funded capital commitments are also at levels last seen in 2004. Commitments represent new registered contracts, an indicator of future construction and spending.

By Al Barbarino

Adams & Co. Real Estate, LLC has been named exclusive leasing agent for three buildings owned by Hilson Management Corp., further stretching the firm’s hold on the ever-tight, Midtown South leasing market.

The buildings comprise 350,000 s/f of office space at 385 Fifth Ave., 390 Fifth Ave., and 5 West 37th Street.
The firm handles leasing in 27 other buildings in Midtown and Midtown South and has represented Hilson Management Corp.’s tenants in prior transactions before their partnership was formed, said Jeff Buslik, who will market the buildings along with Brett Harvey and Staci Goodman.

“The buildings offer stable ownership in a prime location, enabling tenants to attract both local and out-of-town clients,” Buslik said.

Franco Rivera, a design entrepreneur and an agent at Miron Properties, has only had his real estate license for six months. But his interest in the spaces where people live dates back much longer.

At six years of age, when other kids were stacking toy building blocks into towers and fortified walls, Rivera would lay the blocks out on the floor, designing floor plans that always featured a hot tub.

“There’s no budget when you’re in kindergarten, so the floor plan has to be superb,” he says.

Halfway through 2012, finding signs of an economic recovery is a matter of knowing where to look.

“It’s a tale of two cities,” said Ken McCarthy, senior economist and senior managing director for research at Cushman and Wakefield.

“On the one hand you have midtown south, with the tightest market in the city. Rents are rising, and it’s as strong as it was pre-recession. And then you’ve got a sort of flatish evnironment in midtown.”