COVID-Era Lease Provisions

COVID knocked commercial real estate leasing sideways, and it’s only just started to recover in the past year. Part of that recovery has been hashing out new terms between landlords and tenants anxious about avoiding the contretemps of the past three (!) years. Also, New York real estate in particular is in a period of flux, and the Real Estate Board of New York, the powerful owners organization, is in the thick of it.

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— Tom Acitelli, Co-Deputy Editor

COVID-Era Lease Provisions: What Landlords and Tenants Are Trying to Cement

When New York City caught a cold, all of Gotham’s lease negotiations got sick. In 2020, the pandemic threw the legal world for a loop when both commercial landlords and tenants suddenly started banging on their lawyers' doors to find out what rights they had to skip rent or to demand it — or to break a lease entirely. Three years later, tenants are negotiating for more flexible deal terms than they were before COVID-19 swept New York City, and they’re getting what they want more often than not. At the same time, debates over pandemic-protection clauses such as force majeure remain in flux, even 36 months since New Yorkers first learned to recognize symptoms of the coronavirus. Part of this is the nature of commercial real estate dealmaking — parties always want to negotiate the best deals for themselves, and lawyers on either side are only too happy to keep billing — and part of it is the lingering uncertainty from the pandemic itself and the current economic picture. What should be set in stone isn’t clear yet.

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REBNY 2023 and the State of New York Real Estate

It’s possible that the traditional banquet thrown by the Real Estate Board of New York every January had to endure the mighty blows of COVID-19 in order to come out better in the end. Two words from the previous sentence — “traditional” and “January” — in fact already look positively anachronistic when talking about the REBNY gala. Last year, REBNY opted to re-create its Oscars-of-the-CRE soiree in June, not January. And, rather than the rubber chicken atmosphere of the Midtown Hilton, the board made the decision (an intelligent one, if we may editorialize) to move to the sleeker, more western venue of the Glasshouse at 660 12th Avenue. The party cut down on the speeches, amped up the chatter and gossip, and offered food served by luminaries such as Daniel Boulud. It looks like the calendar change away from January will be permanent. REBNY’s 2023 gala is scheduled for April 20, again at the Glasshouse. But those of us attached to old ways sort of liked having a big REBNY party in January because it gave us an excuse to start the year musing on the issues that affect New York real estate. (Even if, yes, the changes to the party were extremely positive.) It’s a good way to assemble the myriad political and business topics in one place and put it all together. It seemed a shame to skip it in 2023 … until we figured, hey, we don’t need a REBNY banquet to publish a REBNY issue.

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