Insignia/ESG sweeps REBNY awards.

For the third consecutive year, Insignia/ESG brokers won both of the Real Estate Board of New York's annual prizes for achievements in commercial brokerage, an unprecedented achievement for a single firm.

The winners of the Henry Hart Rice Achievement Award were Leonard J. DiMicelli, Jeffrey A. Lichtenberg and Philip R. Weiss for the sale of Henry Hudson Hotel and the lease of broadcast production facilities for WNET, the public television station. This is the fourth consecutive year Insignia/Gordon brokers have garnered the Rice prize, another unique accomplishment for a brokerage. The honor is the seventh overall for the firm, and in the 54 years that REBNY has been recognizing the Deal of the Year, no other firm has won the award more than two years in a row.

The winners of the Robert T. Lawrence Memorial Award were Howard Fiddle, Edward Midgley, Carol Nelson, Mary Ann Tighe and Joel Wechsler for the sale of 622 Third Avenue and the lease at One World Trade Center for Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

Of these brokers, DiMicelli had already won the Lawrence prize; Lichtenberg had won the Rice award; and Nelson and Tighe had each won both the Rice and Lawrence prizes previously.

The Deals

In the Thirteen/WNET deal, Insignia/ESG brokers put together a complicated set of transactions that allowed the public television station to secure a majority interest in the former Henry Hudson Hotel at 356 West 58th Street - WNET's home for 22 years and then "flip" the building to Ian Schrager Hotels for $53 million. The brokers simultaneously negotiated WNET's lease of 192,000 square feet at 450 West 33rd Street, ultimately meeting its goal of securing more modern production facilities.

The space WNET occupied at the Henry Hudson Hotel had become obsolete for its purposes, as well as prohibitively expensive. New York's public television station asked the Rice award winners for help in transferring its operations from the lower 10 floors of the building to more appropriate, less costly quarters. The station's new facilities would have to accommodate its projected acquisition of badly needed state-of-the-art digital broadcast production equipment.

The winning brokers overcame several challenges to achieve these objectives: They sold WNET's condominium interest in the property, as well as facilitated the sale of St. Luke's Hospital's condominium (following WNET's exercise of its right of first refusal) to Schrager, a leading hotelier. The complex transfer of both interests enabled the purchaser to embark on the largest hotel renovation in New York at the Henry Hudson, and significantly alleviated fiscal and operating burdens pressing on two prominent non-profit organizations. In addition, the brokers negotiated WNET's lease for new production facilities on West 33rd Street.

Robert T. Lawrence Memorial Award

In the other highly complicated deal, the Insignia/ESG brokerage team arranged the sale of Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield's 975,000 square-foot headquarters building at 622 Third Avenue to Cohen Brothers Realty for $171.7 million. The brokers then negotiated a 461,000 square-foot lease for Empire at One World Trade Center, making it one of the largest Midtown tenants ever to move Downtown.

Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield is the health insurer of municipal and state employees and several private sector unions, while acting as the coverage provider of last resort for New York's indigent. Empire sought both a timely sale of its principal real estate asset at 622 Third Avenue, and competitively priced space elsewhere. With the combined proceeds from the sale and reductions in occupancy and other overhead costs, Empire achieved a surplus that would enable it to vastly restructure operations, and aided in its effort to convert from a nonprofit to a for-profit entity.

The Lawrence prize winners induced the purchaser, who enjoyed several advantages, including a particularly favorable right of first refusal, to pay market value for the building by locating a non-profit "white knight," whose assets and tax status empowered it to bid the property's true worth. The brokers also negotiated a short-term leaseback for the insurer at 622 Third Avenue at favorable terms, and prepared a lease for space at the World Trade Center that passed muster with the Port Authority without delay. The three transactions, involving 2,239,000 square feet and $441 million in consideration, were completed in just two-and-a-half months.

"Seeing our firm succeed so often in this competition is a source of enormous pride," said Insignia/ESG Chairman Edward S. Gordon. "Our primary motivation has never been to win awards, but to provide consistently excellent service to our clients. The fact that our work continues to be recognized by our peers in the real estate community, as well as by our clients, confirms that we are delivering on our commitment to excellence."

The contest judges were Nicholas Donovan, Esq. of Donovan & Gianmuzzi; Lawrence H. Feldman of Tower Realty Trust; Peter Hauspurg of Eastern Consolidated Properties; Robert A. Knakal of Massey Knakal Realty Services; and Robin Thomson of Apple Bank for Savings.

The prizes were awarded on April 8th at REBNY's Annual Sales Brokers Cocktail Party by REBNY Chairperson Bernard H. Mendik and Jerry L. Cohen, the Board's Vice Chairperson.