Donald Trump and Michael Cohen (Credit: Getty images and iStock)

The New York State Department of Financial Services subpoenaed insurer Aon following allegations made by former Donald Trump attorney Michael Cohen about the president’s previous business practices.

At a congressional hearing last week in Washington, Cohen said Trump inflated the value of his assets to insurance companies, as well as to Deutsche Bank.

Explaining how Trump did this, Cohen used the 40 Wall Street office tower as an example.

“Find an asset that is comparable, find the highest price per square foot that’s achieved in the area and apply it to that building,” Cohen said. “Or, if you’re going by the rent roll, you go by the gross rent roll times a multiple — and you make up the multiple, which is something he had talked about — and it’s based upon what he wanted to value the asset at.”

The New York Times reported that while DOFS has no criminal legal powers, it can refer potential criminal findings to prosecutors. The nine-page subpoena served on Aon requests “a broad range of materials regarding Aon’s business with Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization dating back to 2009,” a source familiar with the investigation told the Times.

An Aon spokesperson told the Times the company plans to cooperate with the investigation

The Aon subpoena is the latest indication that federal and state investigations that began looking for evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia are increasingly focusing their attention on Trump’s business practices. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), chair of the House Oversight Committee, has said he will “probably” ask Trump Organization CEO Allen Weisselberg to testify about hush money payments made to two women during the campaign, as well as other Trump business dealings.

In 2017, DOFS was reported to have been investigated Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank, but did not bring any actions or release its findings. [NYT] — Will Parker

From left: Ashley McIntosh, Chris Leavitt, Eloy Carmenate, Gary Pohrer, Mick Duchon, Martha Jolicoeur and Chad Carroll

The Carroll Group was Douglas Elliman’s top-selling team in Florida for the fourth consecutive year, the brokerage announced late Tuesday.

Nationwide, Elliman closed $28.1 billion in sales in 2018, up 8 percent year-over-year. Despite the increase, the brokerage pocketed only $5.2 million in 2018, a quarter of the previous year’s net income.

From left: Mick Duchon, Tal Alexander, Oren Alexander, Howard M. Lorber, Ashley McIntosh, Dottie Herman, Bryan Sereny, Bill Hernandez, Jay Phillip Parker, Dan Teixeira, Pietro Belmonte, Eloy Carmenate, Gus Rubio

In Florida, Chad Carroll’s group was followed by Chris Leavitt and Ashley McIntosh’s Leavitt McIntosh Team, Eloy Carmenate and Mick Duchon’s team, Nicholas Malinosky and Randy Ely’s group, and the Bill and Bryan Team, led by Bill Hernandez and Bryan Sereny. The Alexander Team, led by brothers Oren and Tal Alexander, was No. 6.

In 2017, Elliman’s Florida arm closed $3.6 billion in sales volume. The brokerage did not disclose market-specific figures for 2018.

Elliman’s top 10 agents, ranked by gross commission income in 2018, were led by Wellington agent Martha Jolicoeur, Gary Pohrer, Maria Mendelsohn, Paul Stuart Fishman and Brett Harris.

Some of the brokerage’s top deals in Florida included the nearly $22 million sale of a waterfront mansion on Pine Tree Drive in Miami Beach to DJ Khaled. Carmenate and Duchon were the listing agents. Elliman also brokered both sides of the $26 million sale of a penthouse at 321 Ocean in May. Hernandez and Sereny represented the seller, Russian venture capitalist Boris Jordan. Carmenate and Duchon brought the buyer, AQR Capital Management co-founder Cliff Asness.

JLL CFO Stephanie Plaines and their headquarters at the Aon Center (Credit: JLL, iStock, and Wikipedia)

JLL named Stephanie Plaines its new chief financial officer, replacing the interim executive who took over the position after Christie Kelly announced her resignation in September.

Plaines will join the $7.6 billion real estate services firm later this month after a two-year stint as CFO of U.S. retail for Starbucks, JLL announced Tuesday morning. Before that she was CFO of e-commerce for Walmart’s Sam’s Club stores, and she previously oversaw finances at Ahold Delhaize, PepsiCo and UBS.

Chief Administrative Officer Trish Maxson has served as interim CFO for JLL since Kelly’s departure.

Plaines will report directly to CEO Christian Ulbrich and sit on the company’s Global Executive Board, according to the announcement.

Plaines will “bring her significant experience in financial leadership in businesses across the world to play a key leadership role in the continuing implementation of our Beyond strategic vision and transformation agenda,” Ulbrich said in statement.

JLL’s stock value shot up last month after the company’s fourth quarter earnings call, when Ulbrich announced the company recorded a 25-percent year-over-year spike in global leasing revenue. The company has increasingly shifted its attention toward co-working firms, which its leaders predict will represent up to 30 percent of the office market by 2030.

JLL Spark, the firm’s venture capital arm backed by a $100 billion fund, has made seed or series-A investments in at least 10 tech startups since it launched last year.

The Eklund-Gomes team

The Eklund-Gomes team is bringing its talents to South Beach.

After expanding to Los Angeles last year, one of Douglas Elliman’s top teams is completing the trifecta with a new office in Miami, The Real Deal has learned.

Fredrik Eklund and John Gomes, of “Million Dollar Listing New York” fame, will be opening an office at 1000 South Pointe Drive in Miami Beach, in a revamped Elliman retail space at Murano at Portofino, said Julia Spillman of the Eklund-Gomes team. Eklund, Gomes and Spillman are getting their real estate licenses in Florida.

Their team leaders are Elliman’s Pietro Belmonte and Jorge Sanchez, who are working on sales of Eighty Seven Park and Park Grove, two Terra developments in North Beach and Coconut Grove, respectively. Other Miami agents include Dan Hechtkopf and Darin Tansey. Together, the Miami agents have a combined $150 million in listings, a spokesperson said.

The official reveal will be at a Soho Beach House launch party next week.

The team expanded to L.A. in October, taking on $200 million in listings, including the $100 million listing of a Bel Air spec mansion. It also opened a new 10,000-square-foot office at 936 Broadway in New York.

“We had a big plan for many years that we were finally able to execute with Howard [Lorber’s] support,” Eklund said. The team now has 49 agents in New York, California and Florida.

Eklund-Gomes will handle both new development and resales. The brokers say they are following their clients.

Gomes said the Miami office gives the team the opportunity to “take advantage of where the market is best at the time.” Their clients are increasingly considering buying homes in Florida due to the 2017 changes in the tax law, which caps the deduction for state and local taxes to $10,000, he added.

Eklund, who got married to his husband Derek Kaplan in the Florida Keys in 2013, didn’t say whether he would buy a home in Miami, but Gomes said he’s looking.

“My primary residence will be in New York, but I hate to pack. I have a real phobia for packing,” Gomes said.

The We Company CEO Adam Neumann (Credit: Getty Images and iStock)

After We Company chief executive Adam Neumann and his wife had a difficult time selecting a school for their children, the company launched an elementary school, WeGrow.

Neumann likes surfing, and now WeWork has invested in a wave-pool company and a food line by a famous surfer. He even took a brand new $60 million jet, which the company purchased recently, to go surfing in Hawaii, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A series of investments, which appear wholly un-related to WeWork’s core product of office space, have raised eyebrows from institutional investors who say the company would be much more restricted if it were public, the newspaper reported.

“It’s concerning because you are mingling personal and company interests and that rarely turns out well,” Gene Munster, an investor at venture capitalist firm Loup Ventures, told the Journal. “Public investors—are less tolerant of this.”

The company has raised almost $10 billion, primarily from Softbank and its funds, and was most recently valued at $47 billion. The We Company declined to comment.

Among the investments the company has made that align with Neumann’s personal interests are a $32 million stake in pro surfer Laird Hamilton’s food company, Laird Superfood, and a $13.8 million, 42 percent stake in Wavegarden, a Spanish wave-pool maker — an investment that was later written off.

In WeGrow, an idea that sprung from Neumann’s wife, Rebekah, after she was dissatisfied with school offerings for their five children, the company launched the elementary school that focuses on teaching entrepreneurship to children, and costs $42,000 a year.

The firm has made mega investments in other companies that serve a more direct purpose to the company, including the purchase of marketing firm, Conductor Inc., for $126 million and Meetup for $117 million in 2017. It also led a $32 million funding round in women’s coworking firm The Wing.

But other financial plays led by Neumann, who controls the company board with a majority vote, have rankled investors. In March last year, The Real Deal reported that Neumann had quietly partnered with fashion designer Elie Tahiri to buy 88 University Place, and then went on to lease the building to WeWork — putting Neumann on both sides of the table. The Journal followed with another story recently that Neumann was the landlord in several other buildings that were being leased back to the company. [WSJ] — David Jeans

Vincent Viola and a rendering of Auberge Beach Residences & Spa

Florida Panthers owner Vincent Viola and his wife Teresa paid $10 million for two condo units in the newly completed Auberge Beach Residences & Spa Fort Lauderdale.

The Violas bought the condo units 2103 and 2104 in the South Tower of the luxury condo development at 2200 North Ocean Boulevard. In total, the units equal 7,396 square feet, which mean the Violas bought the properties for $1,352 per square foot, records show.

The Related Group, Fortune International Group and the Fairwinds Group developed Auberge. Other buyers include Citrix CEO David Henshall, former Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino and Jacob Trouba of the Winnipeg Jets. Last year, the son of Salmar Properties founder Sal Rusi paid $9.3 million for a penthouse in the north tower.

Auberge’s amenities include a full-service salon, plunge pool, and indoor and outdoor cabanas.

Vincent Viola is a billionaire who is the founder and chairman of Virtu Financial, one of the largest high-frequency trading firms in the country. Forbes pegs his net worth at $2.6 billion.

Viola owns expensive real estate in New York City, where Virtu is headquartered. He had listed his Upper East Side mansion last year and thought he had a deal for $80 million to a Chinese buyer, before it fell through. The sale would have set a new residential townhouse record for the city.

From left: Savanna’s Chris Schlank, Sen. Michael Gianaris, Jeff Bezos, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mayor Bill de Blasio (Photo Illustration by Lincoln Agnew)

It’s no secret that the real estate industry was salivating over Amazon’s arrival in Long Island City — and was giddy about the potential ripple effect expected for the entire New York market.

But the retail giant’s decision to ditch its plans for a second company headquarters in LIC had a more apocalyptic effect on some than on others.

Not only had Amazon tapped TF Cornerstone to develop part of its new HQ2 on a site just south of the Queensboro Bridge; more significantly, it also signed on for 1 million square feet of office space at One Court Square, a 1.4-million-square-foot office tower owned by real estate private equity firm Savanna. That move set off a chain of events that has now left Savanna in the lurch as a deadline on its $315 million loan looms.

Amazon’s about-face — prompted by political blowblack from some elected officials and other opponents — also put a halt to the condo-buying frenzy, the development rush and the hopes that LIC would become the next big tech hub, a sort of East Coast Silicon Valley.

The company had committed to creating 25,000 jobs over the next decade, and the overall economic bump was pegged by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration at $27 billion over the next 25 years.

The deep-sixing of the deal has drawn condemnation from all corners of the industry, as The Real Deal has been reporting. One developer even referred to the elected officials who sank the deal as financial “terrorists.”

“There is nothing we can equate this to in the history of the state,” Howard Zemsky, head of Empire State Development, the state’s economic development agency, said days before Amazon fled, according to published reports. “It’s the largest economic development prize we’ve ever had.”

Real estate brokers and developers had been benefiting from that dangling prize since November, when Amazon announced that Long Island City (and Crystal City, Virginia) had won its much-hyped national competition to land HQ2, which could have eventually encompassed 8 million square feet.

The Long Island City condo market, which had been suffering from an oversupply of inventory, suddenly became frothy, with lines for open houses stretching down the block and developers eyeing more deals. Office leasing brokers expected Amazon to be a magnet for other tech companies.

All of that activity vanished when Amazon, which is owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, pulled the plug.

Developers are now back to worrying about how to unload units, office space is likely to stay empty for longer, and investors have already pulled back on new land trades.

“Absorption will happen, but it will take some time,” said Michael Tortorici, executive vice president of investment sales at Ariel Property Advisors. “How quickly is anyone’s guess.”

Amazon’s opponents — two of the most prominent being state Sen. Michael Gianaris and newly elected U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose district abuts Long Island City — have maintained that forking over roughly $3 billion in tax incentives to one of the richest companies in the world was irresponsible. They also criticized the deal for being negotiated in backroom fashion without any public input. And many opponents declared victory for long-time middle-income LIC residents, who they argued would be pushed out by the inevitable residential price increases. 

But other local activists decried the loss of 1,500 jobs that were slated to go to residents of the Queensbridge Houses, the largest public housing complex in the country, over the next 10 years.

“Here comes Amazon, the biggest company in the world, to come to do business with Long Island City and the biggest public housing project in the world, and they turn it down. I don’t understand it. Explain it to me,” local activist Billy Robinson told TRD.

“No one came with a backup plan and said, ‘Listen, given that you guys might lose out on the 1,500 jobs, we have so and so in place where we’re going to be able to give out X amount of jobs,”’ he added. “You don’t hear anything about that. They don’t have a plan.”

Real estate players also point out that the $3 billion in tax breaks was not earmarked exclusively for Amazon — any qualifying company could have taken advantage of them — and that those incentives were performance-based, meaning Amazon had to deliver on its promises in order to get them.

Despite their ire, real estate players say LIC is still a bankable long-term investment and that it will revert back to where it was before Amazon entered the fray.

And while far from a consolation, Amazon has said it will continue to take office space in New York. While small beans compared to HQ2, it’s reportedly close to signing a 10,000-square-foot lease at the Chrysler Building.

But the missed HQ2 opportunity is still stinging. And the fact that Amazon’s opponents drove the company out of the city suggests that opposition to the real estate industry is hardening in Albany.

CBRE’s Mary Ann Tighe said the Amazon deal was unique in its potential to transform LIC. “A key point on the Amazon deal is that they elected to pioneer a neighborhood,” she said. “Google’s growth is obviously a huge blessing for the city, but they’re growing in among the most desirable neighborhoods for New York City office space.”

From frenzy to freak-out

Before the Amazon deal, Long Island City was by all accounts a buyers’ market.

That all changed after Amazon selected LIC.

Condos began selling sight unseen, prices started rising, brokerages began jockeying for business, and developers were scrambling to start new projects.

According to data from the listings portal On-Line Residential, 79 contracts were signed in LIC and Astoria between Sept. 13 and Nov. 12 of last year — before the deal with Amazon was announced, the New York Post reported late last month. That number shot up 98 percent to 157 between Nov. 13 and Feb. 13, during the period when Amazon was on its way to LIC.

Meanwhile, in the five weeks after the Amazon deal was announced, 18.8 percent of listed homes in the area saw a price jump versus zero in the previous five-week stretch, according to StreetEasy.

Eric Benaim’s Modern Spaces was already seeing the bump in business.

“It’s devastating for New York,” said Benaim, who collected roughly 4,000 signatures on a petition after news reports surfaced that Amazon was reconsidering.

Benaim, whose firm is a market leader in the neighborhood with $45 million in active listings, said his company would be alright: “We were going fine three months ago, and we’ll continue to be fine.”

Still, he said, condo absorption would slow down.

Savanna’s Christopher Schlank, left, and Nicholas Bienstock

“We’ll have to work like we worked before,” said Benaim, who added that the firm will move forward with post-Amazon plans to recruit between 30 and 40 new agents. “It’s hard, but that’s the work.”

Halstead’s Robert Whalen, director of sales in Long Island City, said, “the future of the neighborhood is still going to happen.”

“But Amazon could’ve accelerated the process,” said Whalen, whose firm had 77 in-contract listings and 13 active listings in the neighborhood on the day Amazon pulled out.

In many ways, though, the aftermath of Amazon’s exit is still playing out.

Stribling & Associates’ Patrick Smith said some LIC buyers with contracts out chose not to sign and “opted to take a wait-and-see approach,” while others signed. He added that the three-month period before Amazon backed out didn’t see notable price increases, but it did reduce negotiability in the market.

Now buyers who went into contract during that time may attempt to renegotiate prices, said Jonathan Adelsberg, a partner at the law firm Herrick Feinstein.

While it’s still early, Adam Swanson, a real estate litigator at the law firm McCarter & English, noted that some buyers could eventually find themselves in foreclosure if they closed on units at too-high prices. He also said there could be a spike in buyers looking to retrade on closed deals, hoping that speculators “with steel spines and ice water running through their veins” will look to capitalize on a potential overcorrection.

Smith said that in retrospect, he’s glad he warned clients that the Amazon plan was not a done deal and that they should invest in the neighborhood for broader reasons.

“Add Amazon, and people felt it would supercharge the growth rate even more,” Smith said. “Take that out, and you’re still left with a good real estate market.”

Developers decelerate

With Amazon now a distant memory, development deals have already started to slow.

Nancy Packes, president of Nancy Packes Signature Marketing Services, said she had a client who was looking to acquire a roughly 35-unit rental building in Astoria, which borders LIC.

After the Amazon deal fell through, the client — which does acquisitions, not ground-up development — instead opted to buy and renovate a similar-size building in Jersey City.

“For them, [Amazon] swayed sentiment away from Astoria,” Packes said.

Herrick’s Adelsberg said LIC was seeing a “substantial slowdown of people putting shovels in the ground” before Amazon selected LIC.

The numbers back that up: Last year, there were 21 LIC development site sales totaling $229 million, according to Ariel. By comparison, in 2015, at the peak, there were 34 deals totaling $524 million.

“People thought Amazon would offset any slowdown,” Adelsberg said. “[The fact that the company pulled out] will have a profound impact.”

Compounding matters is the deluge of development that’s already occurred.

Since 2006, about 16,800 residential units have been added to the market, with another 11,700 units expected to open by 2020, according to the LIC Business Improvement District.

The inventory is dominated by rentals, but interest in condo development has been ramping up lately. For example, Adam America and Vanke have the 182-unit Galerie on the market, and CBSK Ironstate has the 85-unit Corte. (The Corte saw 39 contracts signed while the world was under the impression that Amazon was moving in.)

Ariel’s Tortorici said that residential supply will “come into check” as fewer development sites trade.

If there is a silver lining here for the real estate industry, it’s that Amazon didn’t wait even longer to pull out, sources said.

Even if developers wanted to pounce during the three-month window of real estate euphoria, they had a short amount of time to scope out and close on deals.

In addition, brokers say the neighborhood has another major thing going for it. Large sections of LIC are located in an Opportunity Zone, the much-ballyhooed federal tax deferment program.

“We were bullish even before Amazon because of the Opportunity Zone,” said James Nelson, head of tri-state investment sales at Avison Young. “That will help drive some of the activity.”

An ‘iffy’ office outlook

If anyone is actually losing sleep over the loss of Amazon, it’s likely Christopher Schlank and Nicholas Bienstock, the heads of Savanna.

With Amazon no longer taking space at One Court Square and with Citigroup, the tower’s current anchor tenant, expected to leave either this year or next, the firm could see vacancy in the building soar to 70 percent.

Now Savanna is struggling to refinance the building, with talks to borrow more money or sell stakes in the building all but dead, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“It is going to be hard to get a large commercial real estate loan on a property that is 70 percent vacant,” Joe McBride of research firm Trepp told the Journal.

Savanna’s $315 million loan for the property matures in 2020.

The company, which declined to comment, could lose the property to creditors if it cannot work something out before then.

Beyond One Court Square, the industry was readying for a bump in pricing and a drop in vacancy in the LIC office leasing market with Amazon as a draw.

In November, Savills Studley Vice Chairman Jeffrey Peck said the neighborhood could become the new Midtown South, a submarket that has become a hub for tech companies in recent years.

Overall, 2018 leasing activity in LIC totaled 742,000 square feet in 2018, a 93 percent increase over 2017, according to CBRE. That bump was driven by two large transactions — a 299,793-square-foot expansion by Macy’s at Tishman Speyer’s 1.2 million-square-foot JACX office complex and a 100,000-square-foot renewal by the New York City School Construction Authority.

But LIC still needs more tenants.

In late 2018, Newmark Knight Frank put its availability rate at 26 percent — versus the Manhattan average of about 12 percent.

“For everything Amazon would’ve brought, it was giving hope to the office market,” said Jonathan Eshaghian, an investment sales agent at Marcus & Millichap. “Now the office market is looking iffy.”

The next big fish

While New York missed the Amazon boat, the company is still being wooed by other cities. Chicago, Miami and Newark — all contenders in the original national competition — have reiterated their interest in the online retail giant.

Already home to Amazon-owned audio affiliate Audible, Newark had considered offering up to $1 billion in tax breaks — one of the largest subsidy packages offered outside New York — to land HQ2.

The question now is whether the loss of Amazon will hinder New York as it goes after other tech tenants.

Facebook, Google and Spotify are just a few of the tech companies that have grown in the city in recent years. And a report from the New York City Economic Development Corporation found that more than 7,000 startups with a combined economic value of $71 billion are located in the city.

But will other tech giants follow Amazon’s lead and opt not to deal with the messy politics and community opposition that they might encounter in New York?

The speculation is mixed.

“I do worry about the implications and about the message it sends to the next company that wants to make a big bet on New York,” said Julie Samuels, executive director of Tech:NYC, which advocates for the technology community.

The growth of the tech sector is important to diversify the city’s economy, which has been dominated by financial companies, she said. Given the market’s inevitable ups and downs, Samuels said, a more diverse economy would help New York better weather the downturns.

Others took a more optimistic outlook.

“Can New York City entice another company?” said Marcus & Millichap’s Eshaghian. “Everything is clearly there. Amazon liked it, another company can like it. It’s already a set table, ready for the diners.”

Additional reporting and research by Kathryn Brenzel, Katherine Kallergis, Erin Hudson, Will Parker and Kevin Sun

Katie Sproul, CEO of Halstatt, and Trade Centre South in Fort Lauderdale (Credit: LoopNet)

A joint venture between Cardinal Point Management and Halstatt Real Estate Partners paid $41 million for Trade Centre South in Fort Lauderdale, The Real Deal has learned.

Bobby Sullivan, principal of Hallstatt Real Estate Partners, provided the sale price. The purchase highlights the continued demand for Class A office properties in South Florida.

San Diego-based RA Advisors and Fort Lauderdale-based Mainstreet Capital Partners sold the 216,038-square-foot office building at 100 West Cypress Creek Road for $162 per square foot. The firms acquired the building in 2011 for $22 million, property records show. It was built in 1986.

Tampa-based Cardinal Point Management and Naples-based Halstatt Real Estate Partners financed the purchase with a $34.35 million loan from New York Life Insurance Company. The loan allows for additional funding for renovations.

Holliday Fenoglio Fowler’s Hermen Rodriguez and Ike Ojala represented the seller. The HFF debt placement team of of Chris Drew, Brian Gaswirth and Matthew McCormack represented Cardinal Point Management and Halstatt Real Estate Partners in the financing.

The office building is 87.1 percent leased, according to a release. Several new tenants signed leases last year, including the Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization.

The Cypress Creek office market has a number of major office tenants including Microsoft and Citrix Systems. In February, YMP Real Estate Management acquired the 237,682-square-foot Lakeshore Business Center for $29.25 million in Cypress Creek.

Arata Isozaki, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and Art Tower MITO in Japan (Credit: city-life.it and Wikipedia)

Arata Isozaki, once called the “emperor of Japanese architecture,” was crowned with the industry’s highest honor: the 2019 Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Isozaki, 87, will be the 46th person to receive the award and the eighth from Japan, the New York Times reported. His work includes the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Palau Sant Jordi (home of the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona), Shanghai Symphony Hall and the Qatar National Convention Center in Doha.

He described his work as “invisible” but “felt through the five senses.” The Japanese concept of “ma,” which translates to the merging of time and space, plays a significant role in his designs.

“Like the universe, architecture comes out of nothing, becomes something, and eventually becomes nothing again,” Isozaki told the Times. “That life cycle from birth to death is a process that I want to showcase.”

The Pritzker jury’s citation commended Isozaki for “possessing a profound knowledge of architectural history and theory, and embracing the avant-garde.”

“He never merely replicated the status quo,” the Pritzker jury wrotie in its citation. “But his search for meaningful architecture was reflected in his buildings that to this day, defy stylistic categorizations, are constantly evolving, and always fresh in their approach.”

Last year’s winner was Balkrishna Doshi, who designs buildings in his native country of India at varying scales ranging from educational and cultural complexes, to studios and homes, to government buildings that are specifically tailored for the context in which they’re built. Previous winners have included big names like Zaha Hadid, Renzo Piano, Jean Nouvel ad Frank Gehry. [NYT] — Kathryn Brenzel

From left: Henry Torres, Daniel de la Vega, and Mauricio Umansky with a rendering of Merrick Manor

The Agency will take over sales of Merrick Manor as the Coral Gables condo project and its current sales and marketing firm One Sotheby’s International Realty part ways, The Real Deal has learned.

Astor Companies, led by Henry Torres, plans to complete Merrick Manor, a 10-story, 227-unit development at 301 Altara Avenue, within weeks. One Sotheby’s has handled sales since May 2017. It’s 65 percent presold, One Sotheby’s President Daniel de la Vega said.

De la Vega said he ended the listing agreement with Merrick Manor on Monday. In a statement, he wished the project success and said that One Sotheby’s “successfully positioned the project for closing.”

Torres said he was grateful for the sales volume One Sotheby’s achieved and said the contract was coming to an end. The Agency is expected to take over on Friday or Monday, according to sources.

As of November, available units ranged from about the $400,000s to $2.6 million, and from 574 square feet to more than 3,400 square feet. The building will have nearly 20,000 square feet of retail space. Trésor, a Miami-based jeweler, inked a lease for nearly 1,500 square feet.

Astor Companies launched sales in 2013, but the project was on hold due to a failed land swap between the city of Coral Gables and the developer. Astor then relaunched sales in early 2017, hiring One Sotheby’s a few months later.

The project is near the Shops at Merrick Park, south of Miracle Mile.

The Agency recently expanded to South Florida with its first office in Boca Raton, later opening in Aventura and Coral Gables. The Los Angeles-based brokerage, led by CEO Mauricio Umansky, is also expanding into new development sales in South Florida, taking on 333 Victoria Park in Fort Lauderdale and the Andaz Turks & Caicos.

From left: Hui Ka Yan, Donald Bren, Wang Jianlin, and Stephen Ross (Credit: Getty Images and Fortune Live Media via Flickr)

Speyers, Trumps, Goldmans—they’re billionaires alright, but in the world of real estate’s richest they’re not even close to the top of the heap.

In fact, the wealthiest American developer known for New York holdings is Related Companies’ Stephen Ross, whose $7.6 billion places him as the 191st richest man in the world, according to Forbes’ 2019 ranking of billionaires.

The five highest ranking real estate moguls have at least one thing in common: they all hail from either China or Hong Kong. At number 22 and with a net worth of more than $36 billion, Evergrande Group’s Hui Ka Yan looms largest. And developer Dalian Wanda’s chairman, Wang Jianlin, ranks 36th, with a net worth pegged at $22.6 billion.

The richest American property mogul is Donald Bren, the Southern California investor behind Irvine Company, which owns hundreds of commercial properties and more than 60,000 apartments. He’s worth some $16.4 billion and ranks 68th richest in the world, per Forbes.

Apart from Ross, all the major New York real estate billionaires fall outside of the top 200. They include Richard Lefrak (272), Sheldon Solow (337), Leonard Stern (339), Jeff Sutton (452), The We Company’s Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey (478 and 775), Ben Ashkenazy (504-tied), Jerry Speyer (504-tied), Charles Cohen (645) Allan, Amy and Jane Goldman (667), David Walentas (962), David Lichtenstein (1,281), and Steven Roth (1,941).

President Trump also made the list, ranking 715th with a net worth pegged at $3.1 billion. [Forbes] — Will Parker

A Family Dollar store with Dollar Tree CEO Gary Philbin (Credit: Getty Image and Twitter)

Dollar Tree is going to shut down or rebrand almost 600 Family Dollar stores this year.

The company has booked an impairment charge of $2.73 billion during the fourth quarter to lower Family Dollar’s value, according to the Wall Street Journal. It had purchased the chain in 2015 for almost $9 billion after a bidding war.

Dollar stores overall have enjoyed a decade of strength as consumers focused on buying cheap goods in the wake of the recession. However, sales at Family Dollar have been slumping for years thanks to unhappy workers, neglected stores and bad product selection, analysts have found.

Dollar Tree said on Wednesday that it plans to close up to 390 Family Dollar Stores and convert roughly 200 more into Dollar Tree shops. At the end of the latest quarter, the firm had about 8,200 Family Dollar stores and 7,000 Dollar Tree stores.

Starboard Value LP, an activist investor, asked management in January to consider selling Dollar Tree and asked the company to consider selling some of its items for more than $1 to increase profits.

Dollar Tree CEO Gary Philbin defended the value of Family Dollar to the company.

“I know it’s worth more to us than we are getting credit for and quite frankly it’s not worth that much to anyone else,” he told the Journal. “We are the ones committed to fixing and growing it.” [WSJ] – Eddie Small

The Jills Zeder Group

Two of the top broker teams in Miami have joined forces to become The Jills Zeder Group with Coldwell Banker.

Judy Zeder’s team left EWM Realty International after about 16 years to join Jill Hertzberg and Jill Eber’s group.

The merger aims to expand the combined group’s listings and geographic reach. The Jills have long dominated Miami Beach, while Zeder has done the same in Coral Gables.

Zeder joined EWM via an acquisition in 2005, and later became a senior vice president at the Coral Gables-based brokerage. Zeder’s team includes Judy and her two children, Nathan Zeder and Kara Zeder Rosen.

The Jills is composed of Hertzberg and her children Danny and Hillary Hertzberg, and Eber and her sister, Felise Eber.

The families have been friends for years and worked together on deals. “It’s a very unusual situation to have three families get along and like each other and a couple of generations that is a true think tank. We’re all working together for the benefit of the clients,” Zeder said.

Together, both groups have closed more than $5 billion of real estate sales since 2006 and are top-selling brokers for Coldwell Banker and EWM, respectively. In 2018, the Jills and the Zeder team were the top two-selling teams of single-family homes in Miami-Dade, according to The Real Deal’s ranking of sales. It was the same story the previous year, when the Jills closed on more than $195 million in single-family home sales and the Zeder group closed on $134.5 million in sales.

Their recent deals include the Jills’ $19.25 million sale of 4395 Pine Tree Drive in Miami Beach and Zeder’s $11.4 million sale of 3307 Devon Court in Coconut Grove.

Hertzberg is also the listing broker for 4567 Pine Tree Drive, a waterfront spec home under contract to Jamie LeFrak, vice chairman and managing director of New York-based LeFrak.

Hertzberg said the merger expands their collective black book. “When you get a listing, you call people,” she said. “Imagine all of us calling [our clients].” She said her team did not consider joining EWM.

In a statement, Ron Shuffield, president and CEO of EWM thanked the Zeder team for their time at EWM, and wished them success in their future endeavors.

In recent years, the Jills were wrapped up in a dramatic criminal case involving a former Miami Beach agent who attempted to extort them after he discovered in 2015 that their team had been manipulating listings on the MLS. The agent, Kevin Tomlinson, is now in jail.

The Ascent of Billionaire Money (Chart via Knight Frank’s The Wealth Report)

The New York market may have cooled in 2018, but the city is still appears to be the most popular place in the world for prime property investment.

New York is the world’s leading city for both residential and commercial investment, cementing its position as a global wealth hub, according to Knight Frank and Douglas Elliman’s 2019 wealth report. The study, which surveys global trends among the highest-wealth individuals, looked at property investments of $10 million or more.

It wasn’t all good news for New York, however. The city fell to second place on the overall wealth ranking, beaten by London because of two metrics: the number of high net-worth individuals and lifestyle, which refers a city’s security and affordability.

New York’s relegation to second place may have been due to “stock market volatility and a strong U.S. dollar, which led some foreign buyers to sit on their hands during 2018,” the report said, and could have been compounded by “the underlying structural issue of oversupply.”

While London beat New York for most resident high net-worth individuals, defined as those with over $30 million, New York still has the most billionaires, with 94 resident in the city. New York also saw the highest rate of new high-net worth individuals, adding 55,434 in 2018 alone.

At a launch for the new report held at JDS Development Group and Property Markets Group’s new luxury condo tower 111 57th Street, Howard Lorber, CEO of Douglas Elliman, acknowledged that 2018 had been a tough year for the firm in New York City.

“Our business was probably down about 15 percent,” Lorber said. “About half of that was velocity, meaning sales. And about half of that was pricing.”

But he said he didn’t the market bottomed out yet, at least not “until the prices come down, and the inventory is bought up.”

Prices will stay static in New York over the next year, the report predicted.

But Susan De Franca, president of Douglas Elliman Development Marketing, said that the wealthy demographic surveyed in the report were less affected by market fluctuations than other buyers. She pointed to high-profile sales like Ken Griffin’s $238 million penthouse at 220 Central Park South, and big deals at 432 Park Avenue.

“The real high-profile properties that have very limited inventory — those super ultra high wealth individuals are still looking at them at a very significant asset class,” De Franca said.

While New York’s results were mixed, there was good news for Los Angeles and Miami, where the report predicted investment by high net-worth individuals would grow by 2 percent and 5 percent respectively in the coming year.

“Florida’s low tax status may spur some U.S. residents to move to the sunshine state in the wake of the new State and Local tax (SALT) deductions,” the report said.

Globally, however, wealth growth is slowing, especially in the U.S. where it is now at 3 percent, down from 10 percent in 2017. Despite an overall cooling, Asia is leading wealth growth, with the report predicting India will see 39 percent growth in the next five years, followed by the Philippines with 38 percent and China with 35 percent.

The Coconut Grove Playhouse

Miami-Dade County’s plan to revitalize the Coconut Grove Playhouse has fallen through after years in the making.

Miami’s historic preservation board voted 6-4 against the plan that would have demolished the playhouse’s auditorium, according to the Miami Herald.

The move comes just two years after the city approved a $20 million master plan that would have replaced the playhouse’s 1,100-seat auditorium with a new 300-seat theater.

Some preservationists thought the county did not present them with enough options on how it could still maintain the theater, according to the Herald.

The county’s preservation consultant, architect Jorge Hernandez, said the other alternatives were not not viable.

The county can still appeal the board decision to the Miami City Commission. The revamp plan began in 2004 when the county, Florida International University and the state of Florida agreed to reopen and manage it as a live theater. A 2013 lease deal with the state, which owns the property, said the county must reopen the theater by 2022. [Miami Herald] — Keith Larsen

Colony Capital’s Lew Friedland and Thomas J. Barrack Jr.

Less than a month after unloading $136 million worth of assets, Colony Capital said it is buying a massive $1.2-billion portfolio of industrial properties spread across the country.

The deal, which includes 54 buildings totaling about 11.9 million square feet, will expand the firm’s footprint by 25 percent in square footage terms, said Lew Friedland, managing director at Colony Capital.

The properties are in 10 markets, including Northern and Southern California, Illinois, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.

The investment company, which is based in Downtown Los Angeles and run by billionaire founder Thomas Barrack Jr., a prominent ally of President Donald Trump, now manages $43 billion of assets.

Colony Capital did not disclose the seller. Records for one location show it belonged to Dermody Properties – a logistics and industrial firm based in Nevada with properties listed for sale throughout the country.

Forty-eight of the buildings are light industrial properties with about 7.7 million square feet of space. The buildings average 160,000 square feet in size, and are 73-percent leased.

The remaining six buildings are bulk industrial. They represent 4.2 million square feet of space, with an average of 700,000 square feet per building.

In February, the firm traded a 2.3-million-square-foot industrial portfolio worth $136 million to Nuveen Real Estate. Colony Capital also runs the fund that manages Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch estate, which recently returned to the market with a $31-million price cut.

The firm was drew media attention in February after Barrack, the CEO, seemingly downplayed the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia.

Keller Williams CEOGary Keller and president Josh Team (Credit: Keller Williams, iStock, and Topitto)

Keller Williams saw an uptick in deals last year as the franchise brokerage continued on its growth plan and doubled down on tech, it said in a statement Thursday.

In the U.S. and Canada, agents closed $332.4 billion in sales volume last fiscal year, up 5.7 percent from 2017, according to the franchise brokerage. Closed deals ticked up 2.2 percent, while contracts rose 2 percent to 1.2 million. According to the company, contract volume in the U.S. and Canada totaled $365 billion, up 5.5 percent over 2017. And listings volume totaled $256 billion, a 14 percent uptick over the prior year.

It previously reported a decline in franchisee owner profit in the third quarter, but said it would not be releasing those profit figures in its full-year results. The company also does not release net income totals, so its financial figures are somewhat murky.

Outside the U.S. and Canada, Keller Williams agent closed $4.5 billion in sales volume, up 37 percent from 2017. Contracts surged 43.9 percent.

Official agent count has remained fairly consistent, with 159,447 agents in the U.S. and Canada as of Jan. 31. The brokerage headed into 2018 with 159,631 agents. A recent report said that many of the firm’s U.S. agents actually “ghosts,” meaning they are inactive, unlicensed, and even deceased. The company said it became aware of “inconsistencies” in agent count earlier this year and “took immediate action to reconcile our roster.”

The results come as founder Gary Keller returns as CEO of his namesake brokerage, replacing John Davis. Davis, who held the role for almost two years, headed the company’s growth initiative since it launched in 2011. He also worked on the company’s effort to building a consumer-facing platform and introduced Kelle, Keller Williams’ AI-powered virtual assistant.

In 2018, 27,311 live referrals were sent through Kelle, which represented $8.3 billion in sales volume, the company said. Roughly 146,000 agents have downloaded the tool.

The company also said it is further developing its tech tools, aiming for “the most robust, global, fully connected, AI-powered real estate platform” by the end of this year. Currently, Kelle is available in the U.S. and Canada.

“Our entire job, the whole reason we’re doing all of this is so that our people can offer the personalized, digital experience that consumers demand,” said Josh Team, president of the firm.

Keller Williams is also likely launching its own iBuyer program in the second quarter this year. At a presentation in January, Keller said he was reluctant to do it but feels like there isn’t another option.

“I feel like I have no choice now,” he said. “I can’t allow Opendoor or Zillow to go out and be the only player in the iBuyer space and then begin to dictate terms and build brand around ‘they buy houses.’”

In New York, Keller Williams Midtown has struggled to keep CEOs. Michael Guerra, who was hired in June, was forced out earlier this month, The Real Deal reported. The Midtown franchise lost two other leaders last year in quick succession, including Lezley Charles, who oversaw a massive hiring spree.

Michael Comras and a rendering of Miami Worldcenter 

The retail component of Miami Worldcenter is one step closer to becoming a reality.

The Forbes Company and Taubman Centers hired the Comras Company to partner on leasing of the 300,000 square feet of retail, restaurant and entertainment space at the 27-acre mixed-use development near Miami’s Overtown. Miami Worldcenter is under construction between Northwest First Avenue and Northeast Second Avenue and between Northeast Sixth Street and Northwest 11th Street.

Comras President and CEO Michael Comras, Jeff Evans and Michael Silverman will be working on Miami Worldcenter. Comras said the Seventh Street corridor, where the apartment building Caoba was recently completed, will cater to residents and employees in the area with lifestyle-type tenants that will include a coffee shop, salon, spa, specialty fitness, cafes and more.

Comras is targeting large entertainment concepts, theaters, breweries and sports bars, large fitness operators, a gourmet market or food hall, restaurants and lounges.

Retail spaces will range from 400 square feet to 50,000 square feet and up. Comras will also be reaching out to fashion, athleisure, cosmetics and beauty, and clicks-to-bricks retailers.

The retail space is expected to start opening at the end of 2020, he said.

On rents, Comras declined to provide specific rates, adding that, “I would like to say we’re a young Brickell.”

Caoba, the first building at the $4 billion, 10-block complex was recently completed by CIM Group and Falcon Group. Rents at the 444-unit rental tower, at 698 Northeast First Avenue, start at about $1,800 for a 349-square-foot studio. Next to be delivered is Paramount Miami Worldcenter, a 60-story condo tower with more than 500 residential units, which is 85 percent sold. It’s expected to open in May.

Miami Worldcenter will also have a 348-room CitizenM hotel, a 434-unit rental tower, a 1,100-space parking garage, a 1,700-room convention center hotel from MDM Development Group and an office tower being built by Hines with up to 500,000 square feet of office space.

“There will be very minimal onsite food and beverage [at the convention center hotel] so everyone from the hotel is encouraged to walk over to our main promenade,” Comras said.

Michael Cohen and Donald Trump (Credit: Getty Images)

President Trump and his namesake real estate company owe their former attorney Michael Cohen more than $1.9 million in legal fees, Cohen alleged in a Thursday lawsuit.

The fees stem from more than a year of investigations into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. In the complaint, Cohen says the Trump Organization agreed in July 2017 that it would cover Cohen’s legal expenses related to 2016 campaign investigations as part of a “joint defense” agreement.

In August, however Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations for paying hush money to two women who alleged affairs with Trump, payments Cohen said were made at Trump’s direction. He is expected to spend three years in prison, and just testified in a Congressional hearing against the president and others in his orbit.

Cohen alleges that sometime in the months following the April raid his of Manhattan hotel room, the Trump Organization stopped honoring the indemnification agreement. Cohen said publicly that he would cooperate with prosecutors in June of 2018.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos shutting down an Amazon Pop-up (Credit: Getty Images and EWI Worldwide)

It’s a pop-up dust-up. Amazon will close all its retail pop-up stores by the end of April, the company announced Wednesday.

The e-commerce giant, which launched the small-store concept in 2014, said it had begun to tell employees of the 87 store closures, according to the Wall Street Journal. The pop-up stores, which are located in malls, and some of its Whole Foods stores, provide items like Echo, its voice-assistant speakers, and Kindle, its e-reader.

“After much review, we came to the decision to discontinue our pop-up kiosk program,” the company said.

The announcement follows the conglomerate’s dramatic withdrawal from plans to bring 25,000 jobs to a campus in Queens, and which it says is now being re-allocated to its current locations in Seattle, Crystal City and Nashville.

However, the company said it remains committed to developing a brick-and-mortar concept, and it will keep open its existing book stores and so-called 4-star stores, which sell products that customers have rated at four stars or more.

The company is also reportedly planning a large rollout of its cashless convenience stores, Amazon Go, and another grocery store brand. [WSJ] — David Jeans