After birthing Billionaires’ Row and pulling off a HoF deal in Utah ski country, Gary Barnett is taking his talents to Jerusalem.

The Extell boss has a draft agreement to develop about 125 acres - that’s nearly 5 Hudson Yards – in the 💓 of the city, according to a report in the Israeli financial press. Barnett bought the dirt, once controlled by the Greek Orthodox Church, for just over $200M in ‘23, and has since been in heated negotiations w/ the Jewish National Fund, the local municipality & opposing residents. As befitting Barnett, who has a penchant for brain-breaking deals, the deets are complicated.

Barnett bought the land in the upscale Rehavia and Talvia neighborhoods from Nayot Komemiyut, an investment group led by Noam Ben-David that had bought it from the Greek church in ‘16. The JNF has a 99Y lease deal until 2052 w/ an extension option. Per the terms of the draft agreement, the JNF would give up rights to the land to Barnett & his local vehicle Extell Israel; in exchange, the developer would turn over rights to prominent public buildings including the Khan Theater and the Israel Museum, per Calcalist. About 900 families live on the lands via a sublease agreement that runs through 2050; residents will have to pay 5.5% of the land value to extend their subleases until 2100 (NB: These are translations from Hebrew so might not be exact); those who want to get in the mix on redevelopment opportunities can do so by coming to terms w/ Extell. "We paid a lot of money for this land, and we're not going to give it away for free," Barnett told Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth earlier this year. The deal includes 12 plots designated for immediate development where Barnett could build thousands of resi units.

"When this opportunity came, it seemed big and creative enough for me to get involved,” Barnett said in the January interview, adding that he had long been on the lookout for the right deal in Israel. The specifics may change as the deal gets finalized, but big-picture, this is the exact kind of transaction – messy, public-private, butting heads, complex redevelopment, huge upside – that gets our guy out of bed. We highly recommend checking out The Promote’s breakdown of the ⛷ soul sister to this deal, as well as our special podcast edition on Barnett’s maverick career.

BXP is willing to walk down the aisle solo at its next NYC office project, confident the right suitor will find it at the altar 👰 . The mighty REIT – OGs will forever refer to it as Boston Properties – indicated at a dinner w/ institutional investors last week that it could proceed w/ its $2B, 46-story, 1M sf Grand Central area tower at 343 Madison even sans anchor tenant in hand ⚓ “Our sense is that the company will move forward with this project on a ‘spec’ basis,” Evercore analyst Steve Sakwa, who hosted the high-powered nosh-up, wrote in a client note about the gathering (h/t Crain’s). BXP has until next month to inform the MTA, which owns the ground, about its decision.

The REIT’s capital partner on this thing certainly has the financial cushion: Norges runs Norway’s $1.7T sovereign wealth fund, the world’s single largest such vehicle (though Abu Dhabi manages a tad more money overall through a collection of its SWFs).

Will BXP bet on the improving fortunes of the Manhattan office market? Yes, the availability rate was still 18%, in Q1, per CBRE, w/ overall asking rents flat. And yes, BXP’s previous NYC spec experiment at 250 W 55th St was a painful one. But the holy grail metric of net absorption – space leased minus space vacated – shows promise: +3M sf, the highest since ‘00 🙏 Moreover, BXP shouldn’t be thinking about all the blighted office space being converted to resi or being snapped up by bottom feeders: 343 Madison would instantly join the ranks of single-malt buildings ™, state-of-the-art properties in primo locations that can attract the best tenants. “It would take five years to develop this tower,” Piper Sandler’s Alexander Goldfarb told Crain’s. “But it is literally the best site in Manhattan.”

This week, the suits and high-enough underlings who shape CRE’s capital markets descend upon the New York Marriott Marquis to prognosticate on yield curves and the 10Y’s toll on the capital stack. It is, after all, CREFC’s annual New York shindig, following a raucously exuberant Miami edition in January. LinkedIn is hot w/ “I’m attending!” badges and DMs to meet up are flooding dealmakers’ inboxes. Under the watchful eye of CREFC CEO Lisa Pendergast, CRE pros will indulge in topics such as “Views From The Top Of The Stack” and the “Evolution of Insurance Capital” (suggested alt title: “How Athene is bossing private credit”).

Just over 20 miles away in Pompton Plains, NJ, at a castle that looks straight out of Richie Rich’s fantasy, a whole different set of dealmakers are schmoozing & making things happen. We’re speaking, of course, of ReDeal, the conference put on by heimishe event mogul Chaim Lefkowitz. The conference, just 4Y old, has become a magnet for some of the biggest frum names in CRE: this year’s fireside chat is between Meridian Capital founder Ralph Herzka & investment 🐐 Ruby Schron, but speakers also include fascinating behind-the-scenes guys like David Goldwasser (10/10 tie-clutching headshot), a bankruptcy specialist who’s become a go-to for distressed developers looking for salvation in the courts of White Plains. In contrast w/ CREFC, the panel names are a lot more interesting (“Whos Got the Money?”), befitting the high-octane (“Insight. Opportunity. Energy.”) billing of the event. The food & cocktails feature prominently in the marketing highlight reel, which this glutton 🙋 can respect. To put the shindig on, ReDeal teams up w/ Powwow Events, which also puts on healthcare conference Thrive and Kosherpalooza (enjoyed this interview w/ the Powwow guys).

We remain endlessly intrigued by Lefkowitz’s CRE flywheel: Apart from ReDeal, he runs environmental assessment firm Arsdale, appraisal firm BNL, Florida investor Bunnell, and, most prominently, CRE insider Whatsapp chat Real Deal (no affiliation to the magazine) 🛀

PSA: Wednesday’s upcoming pod is a guided tour 🦍 🦁 🐑 through the syndicator lending landscape w/ Benefit Street’s Mike Comparato - it’s BY FAR the most candid chat w/ a player in the thick of it, and a must-listen. Subscribe now via Apple, Spotify or YouTube to get it fresh.