Deals & Deeds: White Plains firm brokers top suburban lease, and more

Howard Properties Ltd. has won the Lease of the Year award from the Connecticut and suburban New York chapter of the NAIOP Commercial Real Estate Development Association for representing the Wilson Elser law firm in its lease of 125,000 square feet of office space at 1133 Westchester Ave. in White Plains.

The relocation deal, the largest office lease of 2011 in Westchester County, was brokered for the tenant by Howard E. Greenberg, president of Howard Properties in White Plains.

Greenberg in a statement said the award confirms his business operating principle that a small boutique firm “can successfully compete and win the prize for the largest transaction in Westchester County.” He founded the firm in 1998.

NAIOP, with a North American network of more than 15,000 members, represents developers, owners and investors in office, industrial, retail and mixed-use real estate.

Film industry office moves

The Motion Picture Association of America Inc. (MPAA) will relocate its New York office from Tarrytown to 500 Mamaroneck Ave. in Harrison in early 2013, its new landlord, Malkin Properties, announced.

The MPAA signed a five-year lease for 2,476 square feet of space in the five-story, 285,000-square-foot, Class A office building, said Jeffrey H. Newman, executive vice president of Malkin Properties. Its office currently is at 200 While Plains Road in the Talleyrand Office Park.

Daniel Chillemi, of City Commercial Real Estate, who brokered the deal on behalf of MPAA, in a statement said, “Finding top-quality office space at a reasonable price was imperative to maintaining MPAA”™s presence in Westchester County, and I”™m glad to have been able to work with Malkin Properties to achieve this goal.”

A 20-year-old global organization, MPAA is an advocate of the U.S. motion picture, home video and television industries worldwide. Its members are of the six major U.S. motion picture studios: Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios and Warner Brothers Entertainment.

Newman represented the landlord in the deal along with Malkin Properties leasing associates Kimberly Zaccagnino and Tara L. Long.