Cushman, newmark win REBNY Retail Deal of the Year Awards. Team behind Urban Outfitters' Fifth Avenue downsizing take home top award Urban Outfitters wanted to shrink its Fifth Avenue footprint and needed to find a space that would still work with its multi-level store layout. The solution - a 15,000-square-foot lease at 575 Fifth Avenue - earned Cushman & Wakefield's Sean Moran, Patrick O'Rourke, Catherine Merck and Steven Soutendijk the Most Ingenious Retail Deal of the Year award on Wednesday at REBNY's 2025 Retail Deal of the Year Awards at Vornado's 2 Penn Plaza, where dealmakers gathered to celebrate. The brokers masterminded a move from Urban Outfitters' 23,000-square-foot, two-level corner store at 521 Fifth Avenue into the smaller space on the corner of 47th Street. In order to seal the deal, they promised to build a new escalator connecting the lower level of the retail condo to the street level. The space, which previously served as part of L'Oréal's headquarters, was only connected to the building's atrium, a common area subject to a thicket of zoning and city-planning requirements. "To modify those spaces can be time-consuming and costly and challenging," Moran said. "That's something in retail we don't normally get involved with." The Cushman team spent almost two years securing approvals to remove the escalators connecting the atrium to the lower level. They also won approval to open an elevator door on the opposite side of an existing one, allowing it to access the store directly and serve as Urban Outfitters' ADA-compliant elevator. The brokers negotiated a one-year extension at Urban Outfitters' existing Fifth Avenue store, giving them time to finish construction. Then they encountered another complication. The building was being sold as the lease was being negotiated. Real estate investment firms Sovereign Partners and HudsonPoint Capital bought the property from Beacon Capital Partners and MetLife for $378 million in April. That left the Urban Outfitters deal in jeopardy if the new owner decided it wanted the retail space delivered vacant. (They ultimately decided to honor the lease.) "That was another layer of approval that we rarely, rarely see," Moran said. Newmark's Jeffrey Roseman and Drew Weiss took home the Most Impactful Retail Deal of the Year award for brokering luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet's 12,000-square-foot flagship at 785 Fifth Avenue. And Daija US COO Jeffrey Kleiner won the Retail Development/Project of the Year award for his work on the Waldorf Astoria New York redevelopment.

Newmark has arranged financing for Related Ross' acquisition of Boca Raton Innovation Campus (BRiC), a 1.7-million-square-foot office and technology campus in Florida. The 124-acre property was arranged with Ares by Newmark's debt and structured finance team. Located at 5000 T-Rex Avenue, BRiC comprises two office buildings across more than 1.7 million square feet. The campus was originally developed by IBM as its North American research and development centre and is recognised as the birthplace of the company's first personal computer. Related Ross plans to continue operating BRiC as an office and technology campus whilst advancing a long-term vision that introduces amenities, retail, and restaurants. The acquisition marks the company's entry into Boca Raton and expands its presence across Palm Beach County.

Longtime Newmark CEO Barry Gosin to step down. Barry Gosin will step down as CEO of Newmark at the end of the year, ending a 48-year run at the helm of the brokerage and commercial real estate services firm. Gosin will continue to serve as chairman of Newmark's operating company, Newmark & Co. Real Estate Inc., and will "focus on relevant and impactful topics," the company said in a news release Friday morning. The board of directors expects to select a new CEO by the end of the year. "We are delighted that Barry will remain with the Company as Chairman of the operating company to help the next generation of leadership as they guide Newmark through its next chapter of growth," Chairman of the Board of Directors Stephen Merkel said in a statement. Newmark was founded in 1929, but Gosin shepherded the company into the giant it is today starting in the late 1980s, when he began building the brokerage and advisory business with a focus on New York City. He helped take the company public in 2017, although it has remained majority-controlled by Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial services giant formerly led by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. As part of the transition plans, Gosin entered into a new employment agreement that will keep him in the chairman position up to 2029. "The Company is stronger than ever, our strategy is working, and the opportunities ahead are substantial, which is why I believe now is the right time to take a step back from day to day operations to focus solely on matters that will make a difference to Newmark, and to support the Company through this transition," Gosin said in a statement. Newmark has more than 195 offices and 10,000 staff on four continents. The company posted record second-quarter revenue in July and boosted fees from leasing and other commissions by 17.2% compared to the prior year. Earnings per share inched up a penny from the prior year, and the firm modestly beat analyst estimates but held its guidance flat. The brokerage has bulked up its service offerings with two acquisitions from Altus Group this year. Earlier this month, it announced the purchase of the development advisory business from Altus, the maker of the popular underwriting software Argus, which includes 335 employees spread across Canada, the U.S., Australia and Thailand. That deal came a few months after Newmark's March acquisition of Altus' Canadian appraisals business, which serves more than 3,000 clients, including institutional funds, lenders and REITs. In another executive suite move, Newmark named Kyle Lutnick, Howard Lutnick's son, as the brokerage's chief strategy officer in May. The 30-year-old is tasked with overseeing Newmark's transformation agency, which includes the firm's approach to data, artificial intelligence and other technology.