This week I begin what is both a very exciting and very challenging job, launching a new newsletter for GenomeWeb L.L.C., a growing Manhattan publisher of biotech newsletters and magazines. From time to time I’ll be traveling ‘round the country, catching the industry’s major conferences and some other events.

Loews Corp. has signed a long-term lease for 15,778 square feet on the third floor of Westchester One (44 South Broadway), the 852,000-square-foot downtown White Plains building.

Robert P. Weisz showed his characteristic aplomb Thursday night outside of the Westchester office market – namely in front of an audience of young Junior Achievement participants, their parents, and a few business leaders.

Addressing a real estate group this morning, a Forest City Ratner Cos. executive named the first of what promise to be several retail tenants for the $800 million Ridge Hill Village mixed-use campus planned for Yonkers.

During his half-hour talk, Rubackin said construction for Ridge Hill Village would start by July and run more than two years. The project is set to be completed in October 2009.

Aries Deitch & Endelson Inc. of Hartsdale said today a Westchester-based restaurant group is expanding into downtown White Plains – namely a new upscale modern Italian restaurant planned for 1 North Broadway within White Plains Plaza.

Starwood Capital Group, the real estate private investment fund headed by Barry Sternlicht, has hired David J. Friedman as a senior vice president for asset management.

Howard Properties Ltd. and its president, Howard E. Greenberg, today announced the following lease deals. An associate of the firm, Eric Holdorf, was exclusive tenant representative for the following tenants: .. READ MORE

Martinelli Publications has agreed to sell its chain of nine weekly newspapers and the Yonkers building that houses their offices to the owner of a self-storage chain with a dozen warehouses in the region and an appetite for property in the city’s downtown.

The Yonkers City Council will comply fully with a federal subpoena ordering it to supply a variety of public records to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, council president Chuck Schorr Lesnick said this morning.

Westchester County’s Industrial Development Agency this morning agreed to reduce the property taxes to be paid by the developers of a $42 million older-adult apartment building planned for downtown White Plains.

Developers eye more units, less daycare
As HANAC Executive Director John Kaiteris told the Business Journal on Feb. 28, plans for the older-adult building have changed somewhat since last year due to rising construction costs and questions raised by White Plains officials.

$50G for WEDC; $40G for Barclays ‘image-building’
In other business, the IDA also approved a $50,000 grant for the Women’s Enterprise Development Center Inc. (WEDC), a White Plains nonprofit that assists women intent on starting or growing a business.

Occupancy at the RexCorp Realty L.L.C. portfolio of Platinum Mile buildings is approaching 80 percent thanks to a signed long-term lease announced this week with healthcare products distributor Henry Schein & Co.

While much attention in Westchester’s office market has centered on SL Green Realty Corp. and RexCorp Realty L.L.C., Mack-Cali Realty Corp. has been busy as well when it comes to getting some leases done.

Stone Ridge Manor, an eight-building complex of 40 luxury rental townhouses in the Edgemont section of Greenburgh, has been sold for $19.5 million, the brokerage that handled the sale announced yesterday.