The Buzz

STUCK IN B FLAT: Just when we thought life couldn’t get any tougher for small businesses and nonprofits struggling for Manhattan office space, New Year’s brought news that two Class B office buildings in southern Hell’s Kitchen are now on the market. GHI headquarters at 441 Ninth Avenue, priced at $210–$250 million, is being hawked partly for its proximity to “the new Hudson Yards district,” which the New York Post reports is “adding cachet and clout to the sales pitch.” Meanwhile 1250 Broadway, the 39-story 770,000-square-foot building between West 31st and West 32nd Streets that is home to the Visiting Nurse Association, is being offered by SL Green Realty Corp. for an asking price of $350 million. “The building is 99 percent leased at below-market rents,” the Post’s Lois Weiss helpfully noted. Given the massive loss of Class B office space we reported on in March, we wondered if we’re going to hear of an exodus to the suburbs for all those “below-market” nonprofits as Hudson Yards prices keep going up. But when we called nonprofit-realty guru David Lebenstein at Colliers ABR, he said that while there is still “very, very little space” for nonprofits, the situation hasn’t worsened appreciably either. Unlike residential or retail sectors, he said, most nonprofits are by definition a local sector, and so less subject to the competition from international buyers that has kept the rest of Manhattan real estate afloat. And nonprofits like the VNA, which according to press person Richard Rothstein enjoys “a long-term lease” both at 1250 and at Five Penn Plaza, may actually benefit from any future softening of the market that may come with a recession. “Bad economic news is good news for many of my clients,” said Lebenstein, who added that in any event it is too early to predict such a softening. “Real estate is not like fish,” he said. “It doesn t spoil in two days.”

SQUEAKING ART STUDENTS: When we first saw that the real estate blog Curbed had received a letter about conditions at an SRO at 305 W. 29th St., where former art students were complaining of “cramped, very dirty [rooms] full of mice and rats, and spiders,” we first wondered if we were looking at an illegal hotel. But the building is, as the writer said, owned by Ohio Wesleyan University, which houses its “New York Arts Program” students there. “When you fall asleep at night, you can hear the mice scurrying as soon as you turn off the lights,” a student told Curbed. “They make holes in your sweaters and cereal boxes.” Rather than just presume, like Curbed, that “Midwesterners don’t quite understand” about wildlife in Manhattan s housing stock, Chelsea Now looked at the 90-year-old building’s history on the Department of Buildings Website—which listed a 2005 violation for “50 HOLES IN WALLS,” suggesting that the rodents tenancy may exceed that of the art school. Neither D.O.B.’s Robin Brooks nor the university returned calls from Chelsea Now by press time; perhaps the students should use their zoo-like rooms as environmental art, a la Warhol, or get one of the local starchitects like Jean Nouvel or Annabelle Selldorf to encase the whole thing in glass and sell units in LA PETRIE DISH for $2K a square foot.

GOING POSTAL WORKS SOMETIMES: Or at least when you’re local gadfly Chuck Zlatkin, who has long been fighting to stop the U.S. Postal Service from closing its Bronx processing facility and consolidating operations at Chelsea’s Morgan Annex. To the delight of Senator Thomas Duane, Zlatkin announced last week that Bronx Congressman Jose Serrano, a member of the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on postal operations, inserted a last-minute provision into the $550 billion 2008 omnibus budget bill that stops the consolidation and five others across the country. After two years of petition drives, rallies and phone-blast campaigns, Zlatkin told Chelsea Now, he feels vindicated—and so does his union local. “Serrano called [New York Metro Area Postal Union President] Clarice Torrence to tell her he had done it,” he said. More on this story soon. Meanwhile, maybe Serrano can next help manage the USPS transition needs when the Moynihan Station takes over the Farley Post Office, and prevent Duane and aide Colin Casey from getting more migraines.