Morgan Stanley Lease Takes Top REBNY Honor

NEW YORK CITY-A Newmark Grubb Knight Frank leasing team led by Barry Gosin took home the first-place Henry Hart Rice Award Tuesday evening at the Real Estate Board of New York's Most Ingenious Deal of the Year Awards ceremony. REBNY's top accolade for commercial brokers, the Rice Award was bestowed on NGKF for arranging Morgan Stanley's 1.2-million-square-foot renewal and expansion at Brookfield Office Properties' 1 New York Plaza.

The second-place Robert T. Lawrence Award, presented annually for investment sales transactions, went to Helen Hwang and Nat Rockett from Cushman & Wakefield for the sale of 88 Leonard St. on behalf of Africa Israel USA. For the third-place Edward S. Gordon Award, presented for financing deals, this year's honorees were Scott Singer and Jeffrey Moroch of the Singer & Bassuk Organization for the construction financing of 50 Oceana Dr. West in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn.

For Gosin and NGKF colleagues Brian Waterman and Romel Canete, the deal was the culmination of two years of analysis, strategy and negotiations. Among other things, the transaction entailed relocating 2,300 back-office jobs across the Hudson River to Lower Manhattan, a key factor in Morgan Stanley's space requirement being bumped up by some 337,000 square feet at the Brookfield tower.

The April 2012 Morgan Stanley lease marks the second year in a row that the Rice award was given to a mega-deal in Lower Manhattan. Last year's award went to C&W's Tara Stacom and Mark Rotchford for their work in relocating Conde Nast to 1 World Trade Center in 2011.

Peter Hauspurg, chairman and CEO at Eastern Consolidated and among the panel of judges who determined this year's awards, told a REBNY gathering at Club 101 Tuesday evening that the judging process was the longest in recent memory. The back-and-forth debate involved in winnowing 18 submissions down to the three winners was a tribute, he said, to the creativity shown by the nominees in crafting their deals.