According to the Cushman & Wakefield New York Capital Markets Group, total real estate investment sales for New York City rose this year to $14.3 billion, as compared to $9.97 billion in 2003, an increase of 43.4%. More than $11.2 billion of investment sales were recorded in Midtown as compared to $9.3 billion in 2003. The 2003 sales in Midtown included the record sale of the General Motors Building for $1.4 billion to the Macklowe Organization. Sales in downtown Manhattan increased to $3.1 billion this year from $600 million in 2003, a 517% rise.

The C&W report indicated that 59% of the properties were acquired by private equity,24% by foreign entities,13% by public and private real estate investment trusts, and 3% by pension fund investors.Corporate owners users accounted for a mere 1%.

Nationwide, according to data from Property & Portfolio Research, “Approximately $69.1 billion in purchases were recorded through the first 11 months of the year, a level that represents a more than 80% increase when compared to the same period one year ago.”

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In August 2003, Vornado Realty Trust sold its 964,000-square-foot office building at 2 Park Ave. for $292 million, or $303 a square foot, to the German investment company SEB Immobilient Investment. According to the president of Vornado Office, David Greenbaum, “If we sold the building in November 2004, we would have been able to sell the building for an additional $100 million dollars.” He added that, “commercial office buildings prices have increased dramatically over the past 12 months.”

The average price of a residential apartment in Manhattan has increased to more than $1 million, while the average selling price of a new condominium unit is well over $1,000 a square foot. The average sales price of a condominium in Brooklyn rose to more than $500 a square foot.

Land prices in Manhattan increased to as much as $1,000 a square foot, from $100 a developable square foot at the beginning of the year, for prize properties including the Plaza Hotel, the former Mayflower Hotel site and land on Central Park, and the former Beth Israel Hospital North across from Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side.

Prices for developable land per square foot in the boroughs increased as well. Prices in Brooklyn rose to nearly $150 a developable foot; in areas of Queens, including Long Island City, prices rose to $100 a foot, and in the Bronx, prices were close to $75 a developable foot.

Based on the present prices for developable land, very few market-rate rental residential properties are in the planning stages.

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A former Amoco gasoline station and the Whale of a Wash car wash on Houston Street is now 610 Broadway, a development of the Macklowe Organization. It includes 120,000 square feet in the office/showroom building constructed on the entire northern block-front of Houston Street between Broadway and Crosby Street. More than 75% of the building has been preleased. The building will be ready for occupancy in the spring of 2005. This property is only a few blocks from a Bloomingdale’s that opened at 504 Broadway in the spring.

The former car wash and tire shop on East 92nd Street and First Avenue is under development to be a residential rental apartment house and a Marriott Courtyard hotel. On the West Side, the former site of the Gaseteria on West End Avenue between West 60th and West 61st streets was sold last January, and The New York Sun has learned that the developer who originally planned to erect a rental tower is planning to build a luxury condominium with units priced from $850 a square foot.

Two new Home Depot stores opened in 2004. One is in the former site of Hasbro toys on 23rd Street off Fifth Avenue and Broadway. Last month, a second Home Depot opened in the basement of the new Vornado Realty Trust development on the former site of Alexander’s Department Store. In addition to Home Depot, the site is the headquarters of Bloomberg LP. The site is the home of the luxury residential building One Beacon Court, featuring 105 condominium residences. Units in the building sell for more than $1,800 a square foot.

This year marked the opening of the Time Warner Center. The president of the Related Companies, Jeff Blau, co-developed the center with Apollo Real Estate. He believes it “is the Rockefeller Center of the 21st century. “The shops at Time Warner Center opened last January, including Manhattan’s second Whole Foods store. Later in the year, some of Manhattan’s most expensive restaurants opened in the center. And the building’s first residents moved into the luxury condominiums on the top floors of the center, where condominiums are selling for prices in excess of $1,750 a square foot.

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Another Whole Foods store opened in December at Union Square in the former home of May’s and Bradlees. In the summer of 2005, a 75,000-square-foot Whole Foods store plans to open in the AvalonBay Communities’ Avalon Chrystie Place residential rental apartment building on the Lower East Side.

This month, AvalonBay Communities began construction on a second residential tower in Long Island City at the Avalon Riverview, on the water across from the United Nations building. Also this month, the company began construction of its second 25-story rental tower, Avalon on the Sound, directly across the street from the New Rochelle train station.

The former Baronet and Coronet Movie Theater directly across the street from Bloomingdale’s has made way for a new residential condominium at 205 E. 59th St. under development by Donald Zucker. On the former site of the Sutton Cinema, on East 57th Street off Third Avenue, the site has been leveled to make way for a luxury condominium by Clarrett Capital. In July, the 13-story NYU Cancer Institute opened at the former site of the Murray Hill Cinema and Brew’s restaurant on East 34th Street off Third Avenue. The former Olympia Theater on West 107th Street has been torn down to make way for the new residents of the Opus condominium, which was also developed by Clarrett Capital.

The chairman of Prudential Douglas Elliman, Howard Lorber, said he is surprised at the price of condominium apartments at Schaefer Landing, located on the former site of Schaefer Brewing on Kent Avenue in the Williamsburg section. They are selling for close to $800 a square foot. The president of the city Investment Fund, Thomas Lyndon Jr., told this reporter that more than 5,000 residential apartments are planned for other sections of Brooklyn such as Williamsburg, Red Hook, Greenpoint, and Coney Island.

Residential condominium prices are close to $1,000 a square foot in Lower Manhattan. This is evidence that units are selling for more than $950 a square foot at Shaya Boymelgreen’s development at the former headquarters of J.P. Morgan at 15 Broad St. In the fourth quarter of 2003, Mr. Boymelgreen, along with Africa Israel Investment, purchased the building at 15 Broad St. and the adjacent 23 Wall St. for $110 million.

Earlier this month, Mr. Boymelgreen purchased the 35-story, 700,000-squarefoot office building at 20 Pine St., from the Resnick and Reuben families for approximately $265 a developable square foot. This building, constructed in 1928, is slated for conversion to condominiums.

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This past summer marked the opening of two market-rate residential apartment buildings opened in East Harlem. Hampton Court, developed by Glenwood Management, and the Aspen apartments are located on First Avenue between East 100th and East 102nd street. Parcels of land in East Harlem are selling for prices in excess of $125 a developable foot for planned development of residential condominiums.

Long-term interest rates have been relatively stable over the last 12 months. On Monday, the dollar declined below $1.36 per euro for the first time. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 4.28%,and is little changed from the end of 2003. Mr. Lorber of Prudential Douglas Elliman told the Sun that “due to the value of the euro versus the dollar we are now seeing many Europeans purchasing residential condominiums in Manhattan.”

The combination of relatively low interest rates, coupled with the lack of other promising alternative investments, has helped to increase sales of commercial and residential properties in the city.

In each and every borough of the city, properties have been built and sold for the purposes of “repositioning, rehabilitation, and conversion.” As we have reported throughout the year, conversions abound of hotels to residential apartment buildings; automotive stations to new commercial residential buildings and hotels, and, particularly in Lower Manhattan, Midtown South, and Downtown Brooklyn, office buildings to residential condominiums. Owners of vacant land and commercial properties in industrial regions are reviewing their options to sell the property to developers for residential conversion. All of these factors along with the interest rate environment and availability of funds from lending institutions, have added fuel to creating the record, banner year for real estate transactions.

Mr. Stoler is a television broadcaster and vice president at First American Title Insurance Company of New York. He can be reached at mstoler@nysun.com.