When Cushman & Wakefield CEO Bruce Mosler completes the transition to co-chairman of the global firm he has led for nearly five years, he’ll no longer “be traveling like 300 days a year like George Clooney in ‘Up in the Air,’ ” said his longtime friend, developer Charles S. Cohen.
But he will be traveling around Manhattan. Mosler’s first post-CEO role will be as a strategic consultant on Cohen’s national commercial portfolio of over 10 million square feet — starting with four of Cohen’s East Side office towers.
With a team including Arthur Mirante (another former Cushman CEO), Edward Weiss and Joseph Cabrera, Mosler will focus on 3 Park Ave., 805 Third Ave., 622 Third Ave. — a.k.a. Grand Central Plaza — and 3 E. 54th St.
Mosler said his “dream team” will help Cohen “reposition” the buildings. “We’re going to proactively pursue tenants,” among other things.
There soon will be contiguous availabilities of 250,000 square feet at 805 Third and 150,000 feet at 3 Park Ave. An extensive lobby renovation was recently completed at 805 Third, and changes might be in the works elsewhere.
Mosler is stepping aside as CEO for Glenn Rufrano, who takes over on March 22. Mosler — who was in Florida “on my first vacation in years” — sounded enthused by his new role.
“I always said that five years was an appropriate period of time [to be CEO],” Mosler said. “One always has unfinished business, but it’s time to move on as the market improves.”
During Mosler’s time at the helm, he guided Cushman through the sale of a majority stake to an Italian company controlled by the Agnelli family after years under Japan’s Mitsubishi.
Commercial real estate is unlike most other industries, where a step-down from CEO would normally be a demotion. Players of Mosler’s stature often weary of the grind and relish returning to dealmaking and strategizing for clients.
For example, CB Richard Ellis’ Stephen B. Siegel cheerfully went on to be head of global brokerage when he lost the CEO spot of Insignia/ESG after it was sold to CBRE. Last week he was named CBRE’s top dealmaker of 2009.
“I did my first deal with Bruce probably in 1984,” Cohen recalled. “We had dinner at Milos a few weeks ago. We talked about him stepping aside from being a global ambas sador.
“Tenants have a lot of choices today. So I thought, why don’t we put together a dream team to represent my buildings? What landlord wouldn’t want to have a team with two former presidents of Cushman & Wakefield?”
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A big restaurant is in the works at the Carlton Hotel on Madison Avenue at 29th Street, where an outfit called Collective Hospitality plans a two-level, French-inspired seafood eatery, Millesime, in the former and current Country spaces.
Carlton general manager Victor Freeman said we were “jumping the gun” as the lease is “not all buttoned up yet.” Even so, a recent Community Board 5 liquor license application hearing suggests that things are well along.
So does Collective Hospitality’s Web site, which we stumbled upon while Googling rock band Collective Soul.
The site boasts that Millesime — French for “vintage” — will bring a “bustling seafood brasserie” to the Carlton’s gorgeous but under-used mezzanine, which boasts 100 year-old steel columns and a 1904 Tiffany skylight. It’s been dark since Country’s main room closed two years ago.
A glass bridge will connect the mezzanine dining space with a reservations-only bar. A “Salon Millesime” will also swallow up the ground-floor space that’s currently used as Country Grill. The whole megillah is being designed by architect Douglas Fanning of Brooklyn’s Dyad Studios.
Collective Hospitality brings together four well-traveled food professionals who operate places around the US, including the bars at the Hudson and Morgans hotels here.
One is acclaimed chef Laurent Manrique. A few months ago, Gael Greene blogged that Manrique, who ran places in San Francisco, was talking to the Carlton people about “consulting” on a new eatery there. It sounds like he’ll be doing a lot more than e-mailing in a menu.