The Real Estate Board of New York’s holiday luncheon at the Metropolitan Club capped a festive week for the industry, which included with the packed Fried Frank holiday bash at Cipriani 42nd Street two nights earlier.
The mood was celebratory thanks to the thriving office market, where low vacancy will continue falling because there’s little new product in the pipeline.
SL Green chief executive and chairman Marc Holliday shared the stage with superchef Daniel Boulud at the REBNY event which I moderated. After a rousing curtain-raiser by REBNY president Jim Whelan, Holliday praised outgoing Mayor Eric Adams’ accomplishments as a “cheerleader” for the city and his role in promoting rezoning and housing creation.
Asked whether the office market would keep up its on-fire pace, Holliday saw no imminent large threat. He said plans would be announced early next year for 346 Madison Ave., the former Brooks Brothers store site which SL Green recently purchased for future redevelopment.
He highlighted the importance of major amenities at new office towers such as the “immersive events” space at Summit atop One Vanderbilt with food curated by Boulud. Noting that many of today’s towers, not only SL Green’s, boasted such features, he cited the “great job [Vornado chief] Steve Roth has done near Penn Station.”
Holliday suggested a willingness to “work with” Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and noted that the commercial market thrived throughout previous administrations with different ideologies.
His comment presaged his remarks in SL Green’s investors’ call the next day, when he said, “My early read, based on key early appointments, is that we’ll be able to work with this new administration.”
Boulud celebrated his partnership with SL Green, the city’s largest commercial landlord. Boulud’s Le Pavillon and Joji at One Vanderbilt and La Tete D’or at One Madison are among the city’s most acclaimed new eateries.
“People talk about them wherever we travel,” Boulud said – meaning in other cities where his Dinex Group operates, including a return to London in 2026.
The 200-strong crowd included developer-landlords Jeff Gural and Jonathan Resnick, dealmakers Paul Massey, Mitti Liebersohn, David Goldstein, Mitch Arkin, Lou D’Avanzo, Tom Bow, Leslie Hummel and retail whiz Joseph Aquino hawking his book “Memoirs of a Watch Salesman.”
Fried Frank real estate chairman Jonathan Mechanic came as well, fresh off hosting his firm’s holiday party 48 hours earlier. That gala event drew the usual who’s-who of Big Apple real estate royalty that included Bill Rudin, Aby Rosen, Jed Walenas, John Cefaly, Mary Ann Tighe, Alexander Durst, and Hal Fetner were among the 1,000 plus guests and the most delicious cold shrimp in town.
