Ross Z. Silver

Ross Silver is a real estate partner resident in Fried Frank's New York office. He joined the firm in 1987.

Ross has extensive experience with acquisitions and sales for single assets and portfolio transactions, leasing on behalf of landlords and tenants, borrower financings, joint ventures and other commercial real estate related matters for all types of commercial and multi-family properties, including office buildings, apartment buildings, shopping centers, hotels, and mixed use properties.

Ross' representative clients include WarnerMedia, Blackstone, Tishman Speyer Properties, Morgan Stanley, Coach, Inc. (n/k/a Tapestry), Savanna Fund, AllianceBernstein, Waterton Associates, The Feil Organization, JEMB Realty, Empire State Realty Trust, Kenneth Cole Productions, United Nations Development Corp., Highgate Hotels, and WeWork.

Ross is consistently a top ranked real estate attorney by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business. He has also been consistently recognized by Legal 500 as a leading individual in Real Estate.

In 2021, Ross was a recipient of the Pro Bono Publico Award, an annual award given by The Legal Aid Society of New York for outstanding service to Legal Aid and its clients. In August 2019, Ross was the subject of a feature article in Commercial Observer regarding his lead counsel role on various marquee real estate projects in New York City. In 2014, he was selected by Law360 as a Real Estate MVP of the Year (one of only seven real estate lawyers in the country to be chosen for this honor).

Ross is a member of the Board of Trustees of Bridges Outreach, a charity that provides food, clothing and other needed supplies to homeless people in New York City, Newark, NJ and Irvington, NJ. He has been honored for his dedication to pro bono work, notably he has been recognized by the IDEAL School & Academy and by the Girl Scout Council of Greater New York. In addition, for many years he has done pro bono work for The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. He also acted as pro bono counsel to The Legal Aid Society in its 30-year, approximately 200,000-square-foot headquarters lease at 40 Worth Street in New York City.

Ross is a frequent guest lecturer at Columbia Business School in the MBA Real Estate Program.

Work Highlights

• WarnerMedia (f/k/a Time Warner) in connection with the sale-leaseback of its approximately 1.5 million-square-foot condominium unit at 30 Hudson Yards (a/k/a Tower A). WarnerMedia sold the unit to an affiliate of Related Companies for approximately $2.2 billion and is leasing back all of such unit for its global headquarters across 26 floors until 2034.
   
• Blackstone Group:
  • its approximately $475 million acquisition of Parker Towers, an apartment complex in the heart of Forest Hills, Queens, from Jack Parker Corporation.
  • its $180 million sale of 1140 Avenue of the Americas in New York City to American Realty Capital New York City REIT, a public non-traded real estate investment trust.
  • its $130 million sale of the ground leasehold interest in the Bell Atlantic Tower located at 1717 Arch Street in Philadelphia to Brandywine Realty Trust.
     
• AllianceBernstein: 
  • its 189,000-square-foot lease at The Spiral, a 65-story, 1,031-foot office tower being developed by Tishman Speyer at 66 Hudson Boulevard in Manhattan.
  • its 205,000-square-foot lease for its headquarters relocation to the 372,000-square-foot, Class-A office tower at the Fifth + Broadway mixed-use project being developed by Brookfield Properties at 501 Commerce Street in Nashville, Tennessee.
     
• Tishman Speyer in connection with its 15-year, 320,000-square-foot anchor tenant lease to a subsidiary of Dentsu Inc., an international advertising and public relations company, at the Morgan North redevelopment at 341 Ninth Avenue in New York City.
   
• Morgan Stanley:
  • its sale-leaseback of the office portion of 522 Fifth Avenue in New York City to RFR Realty. Morgan Stanley currently occupies all of the office space in the 23-story, approximately 537,685 rentable square feet building.
  • its 1.3 million-square-foot lease at One New York Plaza in Manhattan.
     
• Coach (n/k/a Tapestry): 
  • the sale-leaseback of its global headquarters at 10 Hudson Yards in New York City, which valued the skyscraper at $2.15 billion.
  • in connection with its sublease of 148,000 square feet to Guardian Life Insurance at 10 Hudson Yards.
     
• Savanna:
  • $257 million sale of 540 West 26th Street in New York City to Ramrock Real Estate.
  • its approximately 350,000-square-foot lease to Centene, one of the country’s largest healthcare companies, for their new headquarters and its 103,000-square-foot lease to Altice USA, both at One Court Square in Long Island City.
     
• Kathrin Werner, a general partner of the property owner, in connection with the approximately $900 million sale of The Terminal Warehouse, a former freight warehouse in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, to a joint venture of L&L Holding Co. and Normandy Real Estate Partners.
   
• The Feil Organization:
  • acquisition of Lakeway Center, a three building office complex that is one of the premier commercial properties in the New Orleans area.
  • $175 million financing of the Lakeside Shopping Mall in New Orleans, a 1.2 million-square square foot, high-end, shopping center.
  • acquisition, sale, joint venture and financing of various properties in New York City, Boston and Chicago.
     
• Pro bono counsel to The Legal Aid Society in its 30-year, approximately 200,000-square-foot headquarters lease at 40 Worth Street in New York City.
   
• Kenneth Cole Productions in connection with the sale-leaseback of its headquarters at 603 West 50th Street in New York City to SL Green Realty Corp.
   
• WeWork:
  • its leasing of office space within select Hudson’s Bay stores, including the upper floors of Hudson’s Bay location on Queen Street in Toronto.
  • its 457,000-square-foot assignment of lease from LinkedIn at The Village at San Antonio Center in Mountain View, California.
     
• JEMB Realty Corporation:
  • $275 million refinancing from AIG of Herald Towers in New York City.
  • $225 million refinancing from Morgan Stanley for the Herald Center in New York City.
  • acquisition, financing and development of a mixed-use project currently under construction at 240 Willoughby Street in Brooklyn, New York.
     
• Related in a $1.4 billion dollar joint venture with Mitsui Fudosan, fully financing the development and construction of the 1.26 million square-foot office tower at 55 Hudson Yards.
   
• SL Green Realty Corp. and its partner:
  • acquisition and financing of the Citigroup world headquarters located at 388 and 390 Greenwich Street in Manhattan.
  • $386 million acquisition of The Olivia, a mixed-use residential and commercial building on Manhattan's West Side, in addition to an adjacent lot.
     
• Waterton Associates in the sale of its ground leasehold interest in 88 Leonard Street to Jamestown LP. 88 Leonard Street is a 21-story 305,155-square-foot Costas Kondylis-designed residential rental building located in Tribeca that includes over 350 apartments and 11,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. 
   
• United Nations Development Corporation in connection with its real estate matters relating to One and Two United Nations Plaza including, without limitation, its lease of over 800,000 square feet to the United Nations.
   
• Square Mile Capital Management in a built-to-suit lease for Lowenstein Sandler’s headquarters, consisting of 170,000 square feet at 56 Livingston Avenue, Roseland, New Jersey.
   
• Murray Hill Properties and Clarion Partners on the $470 million acquisition of 180 Maiden Lane in New York City, a 1.2-million-square-foot tower.
   
• Hiro Real Estate in the sale of its ground lease at 150 East 42nd Street (formerly known as the Mobil Building) to an investor group led by David Werner.
   
• Lehman Brothers:
  • its $810 million sale of 237 Park Avenue in New York City.
  • its $103.5 million sale of 816 Congress Avenue, a 20-story, 434,000-square-foot Class A building.
  • its $76.5 million sale of 701 Brazos Street, both of which are located in Austin, Texas.
     
• Atlas Capital Group, Fortress Investment Group and Westbrook Partners in their acquisition of the St. John’s Center located at 555 Washington Street in New York City.
   
• MetLife in connection with a 270,000 square foot lease to Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. at 85 Broad Street in Manhattan, the new site of Oppenheimer’s world headquarters, and in connection with a 115,000-square-foot lease to The Nielsen Company.
   
• Highgate Holdings:
  • its $335 million sale of the 712-room Radisson Lexington Hotel located on the corner of 48th Street and Lexington Avenue in New York City to DiamondRock Hospitality.
  • the acquisition and financing of the former Knickerbocker Hotel located at 6 Times Square in New York City and the adjacent parcel of land, and represented Highgate Holdings and, its partner, Rockpoint, in the sale-leaseback of the Milford Plaza Hotel in New York City’s Time Square district.