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Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park infographics: what's built/what's coming/what's missing, who's responsible, + project FAQ/timeline (pinned post)

Tighe, new head of REBNY (and first woman), has longstanding Ratner ties--and owns a piece of the Nets

The Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) has long been a strong supporter of Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards, and its new chairman only reaffirms that, given her longstanding ties to the company.

The New York Observer reports:
For the first time in its 113-year history, the Real Estate Board of New York, the industry’s most powerful lobby and one of the city’s few remaining old boys’ clubs, will hand over its chairmanship to a member of—egad!—the opposite sex.

The board’s executive committee on Sept. 8 officially named Mary Ann Tighe, CEO of the New York tri-state region for CB Richard Ellis, the city’s largest commercial real estate firm, chairman of the board. Her term will begin on Jan. 1.


Tighe background

As I wrote in February 2006, CBRE is the exclusive leasing agent for the office portion of Forest City's Ridge Hill Village development in Yonkers, NY.

Tighe in 2002 served as agent for Forest City Ratner on leasing of the Bank of New York tower at Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Terminal mall in Brooklyn.

In 2001, representing the New York Times Company, Tighe, according to the firm's web site, "arranged a network of joint ventures enabling the construction of a new 1.5 million square foot tower at 8th Avenue and 41st Street...The transaction included a joint venture between NYTC and developer Forest City Ratner (FCR), which becomes 2 condominium interests upon construction completion..."

In 2006, "[a]s agent for the Forest City Ratner condo in the New York Times Building, completed a successful lease up of the speculatively built 600,000 sf at rents in excess of an average $80 per sf, a record for the 8th Avenue and 41st Street location."

As noted in Chapter 8 of my report, in a 1/22/04 profile of Bruce Ratner, the New York Times quoted praise of Ratner from Tighe but did not mention the real estate agent's connections to the Times or to Ratner. A 12/10/03 New York Sun profile noted: "After she helped pick Mr. Ratner [while working for the Times], she hopped over to his team, where she’s representing the company on the Times project, as well as some of its Brooklyn properties."

Also, the Brooklyn Paper reported 8/21/04 that Tighe is a member of the investment group that Ratner assembled to buy the New Jersey Nets and move them to Brooklyn.

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