On September 1, 2015, George Donohue, President of IPG Real Estate was selected and retained as a real estate expert witness for an important legal case regarding a famous restaurant located in the heart of Midtown Manhattan. The owner of Langan’s – a celebrated restaurant in Manhattan – was in a dispute with the building owner of 150 West 47th Street in regard to the extension of their lease.
The building’s owner and the restaurant owner were required to participate in a legal arbitration. Over $12,000,000 was at stake. The owners of Langan’s hired Mr. Donohue to represent them because of Mr. Donohue’s long experience and expertise in commercial real estate especially office and retail leases. Prior to running IPG Real Estate, he was formerly the head of real estate for the World Trade Center. Mr. Donohue has over 30 years experience in real estate and has been involved with thousands of leases. He thoroughly analyzed the lease, the premises, the surrounding market and competitive spaces to determine the value of the retail lease.
Mr. Donohue explained, “Determining the value of a commercial lease is very complex because there are often many factors involved and each case is very unique. When evaluating the value of a lease you need to be extremely diligent, accurate and have a very deep understanding of how and why particular leases are written in a certain way.” Mr. Donohue successfully evaluated the lease and provided his expert testimony at the arbitration.