[NYguy]

Rosen still in on the area...


https://commercialobserver.com/2025/...-seagram-2025/

By Max Gross
October 28, 2025

Commercial Observer: You guys have historically been in a lot of spaces in Midtown. Broadly, how do you view the Midtown market right now?

Aby Rosen: The Midtown market has always been good. It’s now even better. I think people realized if you’re in walking distance to the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, transportation, Grand Central, Penn Station — that’s the place to be. I think One Vanderbilt did a great job highlighting that. I think resi is pushing down from Midtown toward Grand Central. There’s conversions going on 43rd Street — you know, the old Apple Bank is getting converted to resi; 520 Fifth went to resi, and some office. So that neighborhood’s on fire.

I wanted to ask about the Chrysler Building. Tell us the story from your perspective?

It’s a story that was told already before, so I’m not going to rehash it.

.....What do you think they need to do to be successful?

I told them so many times, they know exactly what they need to do. They need to get in bed with somebody, create a partnership, a venture, a kind of alignment, and then let’s make money together. If only one says, “I want, I want, I want, I want,” and “I don’t care what you do, and if you can hang yourself, fine,” it’ll fail. But they want it all. They want control, they don’t want to participate in the downside, they only want the upside.

Believe it or not, I’m still in it to participate in that bidding again — because I still believe that I’m very much the right venture partner with Cooper to do this. I invested a couple hundred million bucks, I don’t mind putting in another $100 to $200 million to do that. So we are still monitoring what’s happening there, especially owning the development site next door. They’ll come back to us eventually if they can’t figure it out. Or if they don’t come back, it’s fine too — I wish them all the best.