The East Midtown rezoning plan does have some detractors in the business community that say it does not go far enough to provide incentives for redevelopment in the area except for a few buildings in the short term. The plan has the potential to spark 6.5 million square feet of new development in the next 20 years.

The merger of Invitation Homes and Starwood Waypoint "creates the leading single-family rental company in the United States," says Fred Tuomi, who will be CEO of the combined company.

Although leasing on the part of cloud providers has temporarily slowed, there is a lot of pent-up demand from other Fortune 1000 firms.

Conrad Lazo, a board certified construction attorney and a shareholder at Becker & Poliakoff, offers key insights in part two of this exclusive interview.