Portion of Macy’s Flagler Street property in downtown Miami sold




















A New York firm bought part of the Macy’s building in downtown Miami and is expected to acquire the rest. The next priority is negotiating a new lease to keep Macy’s as a tenant.

In a deal that could have implications for the future of downtown Miami’s anchor retail tenant, a New York real estate investment firm paid $15.55 million to acquire more than half the property that now houses Macy’s Flagler Street store.

The acquisition by Aetna Realty Group includes the 48,000 square feet of land that was leased to R.W. Burdine in 1917. Until the recent sale, the property was owned by 23 heirs of Richard and Harriet Ashby, who signed the initial 99-year lease with Burdine. The lease expires in 2016.





The Ashby family began taking steps to prepare the property at the intersection of Miami Avenue and Flagler Street for sale nearly four years ago, said Lewis R. Cohen, a GrayRobinson lawyer who represented the Ashby family in the transaction that closed on New Year’s Eve.

Over the years, Macy’s and its predecessor, Burdines, grew the site’s downtown presence well beyond the Ashby land, and the current building now extends another 30,000 square feet of land. Aetna has also made a commitment to purchase the remaining portion of the building, that is currently owned by Macy’s, Cohen said. But that deal hasn’t closed yet.

“That deal is a sure thing,” Cohen said. “They could not have closed with us without having an agreement with Macy’s completely nailed down.”

When Macy’s decided not to purchase the Ashby land itself, the owners soughta third-party that could control both pieces. The reason: Improvements made to the store over the years straddled both properties, such as elevators and escalators starting on one parcel and ending on another.

“Between the engineering difficulties of severing the properties and the legal issues involved, it would have been somewhere between extremely expensive and impossible” for different entities to share control, Cohen said.

Aetna was one of three bidders interested in the site, Cohen said. One of the other players was the Barlington Group, a Miami developer that in 2011 signed a deal with Macy’s to sub-lease 20,000 square feet of empty ground-floor space for a mix of restaurants and cafes.

Macy’s spokesman Jim Sluzewski said this transaction doesn’t impact Macy’s current lease. He declined to comment on any other pending transaction regarding the property the retailer owns in downtown Miami.

“It’s business as usual,” said Sluzewski, who also would not discuss Macy’s long-term plans for downtown Miami beyond the expiration of its lease. The company’s roots in downtown Miami date to 1898, when the first Burdines opened in a nearby downtown location.

Aetna and its local attorneys did not respond to calls Wednesday for comments.

But Cohen said Macy’s is in the process of finalizing a short-term deal with the new owners.

“They intend to stay for at least the foreseeable future,” Cohen said. “For a minimum of five years they’ll be there and possibly longer.”

Downtown scene

Macy’s long-term future on Flagler Street has been in doubt since 2007, when Macy’s Florida then-Chairwoman Julie Greiner took city leaders to task for the deplorable conditions in downtown and threatened that the retailer might leave.





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Heroin deaths creep up statewide as other opiates become too expensive




















Every time her son, Tod, relapsed, Maureen Barrett sat with him all day at a rehab facility, hoping she could save him.

Tod died last spring, after years of abusing opiates — everything from heroin to oxycodone. His death left Barrett, of Davie, to mourn the third child she lost to drugs.

Years earlier, Palm Beach County resident Karen Perry sent her son off to college, not knowing he’d gotten hooked first on oxycodone, and then something cheaper and stronger: heroin.





“At some point, it became expensive to buy prescription pills, so he started buying heroin,” she said, reflecting on her son’s fatal overdose.

Following a statewide war against prescription drug abuse, there are early signs of growing heroin use as an alternative to opiate pills, which are becoming harder and more expensive to get.

In an analysis of drug-related deaths for 2011, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement flagged heroin as one of the year’s most harmful drugs. Heroin deaths statewide increased by 18.8 percent to 62.

Fifteen of those heroin-related deaths happened in Miami — the second-highest number in the state, according to the FDLE report. Orlando was the first with 18 deaths. Fort Lauderdale had three.

Historically, heroin deaths statewide are lower than they have been in the past two decades. Deaths from the drug have been declining since a high of roughly 270 in 2001, according to FDLE data.

Still, experts say the recent increase is worrisome. Miami-Dade drug rehabilitation experts said they have seen a small but definite increase in patients who have switched from oxycodone or other prescription drugs to heroin within the past year.

“When I ask my patients, they say, ‘Yeah, I couldn’t get oxycodone, and now I’m using heroin, four or five bags,’ ” said Dr. Patricia Junquera, a University of Miami assistant professor of psychiatry and a doctor at Jackson Memorial Hospital’s detox unit. “I think more people are switching to heroin.’’

The change could mean big problems for Miami-Dade, which some doctors say is desperately lacking in detoxification facilities for the rich and poor alike.

There are only a handful of facilities in Miami-Dade County that provide detox services, both inpatient and outpatient, said Dr. Juan Oms, medical director of Miami Outpatient Detox, and the need is growing.

“I think it’s desperate at this point,’’ Oms said. “There is so much opiates and heroin out there.”

The trend is the result of changes to state law and crackdowns by law enforcement in recent years, in an effort to rid South Florida of its status as the pill-mill capital of America.

After the Florida Legislature realized the state was the focal point of a national prescription drug abuse epidemic, Gov. Rick Scott signed HB 7095 in June 2011, which put strict restrictions on prescription drug distribution.

The bill drastically cut back on who could dispense narcotics and expanded penalties for pill-mill operators.

If Florida was the focus of the pill-mill problem, Broward County was epicenter.

In 2007, the county had four pill mills. By 2009, that count had jumped to 130, Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti said. BSO mounted an effort to get rid of the pill mills, and three years later there were about 50 left, Lamberti said.

With some suppliers run out of business and laws preventing new mills from opening up, the price of pills jumped. Oms said the price of 30 milligrams of oxycodone jumped from about $10 to about $30 in 2012.

Some types of heroin are as cheap as $10 a hit, and addicts are going to pick the cheaper option without worrying about the painful detox process, said John Schmidt, founder of the Miami-based drug rehabilitation clinic Marvin’s Corner.

Dr. Paul Adams, attending emergency physician at Jackson Memorial Hospital, said drug trends are all about economics.

“When there’s no supply,” he said, “then all of the sudden you will fall back to other drugs, heroin being the standby.”

JMH detox specialist Junquera said she saw the number of heroin patients increase by about 50 percent at her clinic during the first six months or so of 2012. She said she sees about 25 people a week for inpatient heroin detox.

Schmidt said he has seen a steadily increasing stream of heroin addicts at his center. He expects the problem, growing slowly now, to “avalanche” into a large-scale drug problem much like the nationwide prescription drug abuse epidemic.

For Barrett, she hopes people will take notice so addicts can get help before it’s too late, as it was for her two sons and daughter-in-law.

“The need for help for the addicts, in terms of detox and recovery, has just risen tremendously, and of course we don’t have the funds,” she said. “I tried everything. Everything. I can’t tell you how many times my kids were in detox and rehab.”





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Judge rejects part of Apple App Store suit vs Amazon






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Wednesday rejected part of Apple Inc‘s lawsuit against Amazon.com Inc‘s use of the term App Store, ruling Apple cannot bring a false advertising claim against the online retailer.


U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in Oakland, California, granted Amazon‘s motion for partial summary judgment, which only challenged Apple’s false advertising allegations. Apple leveled other claims against Amazon, including trademark infringement.






An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment, and an Amazon representative could not be reached immediately.


Amazon has stepped up competition against Apple in recent years, launching its cheaper Kindle tablet computer to go after the dominant iPad and trying to lure mobile application developers to its Kindle platform.


One of the first public clashes in their tussle was Apple’s 2011 lawsuit.


Apple accused Amazon of misusing what it calls its APP STORE to solicit developers for a mobile software download service. However, Amazon said its so-called Appstore has become so generic that its use could not constitute false advertising.


In a legal filing last year, Amazon added that even Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook and his predecessor, Steve Jobs, used the term to discuss rivals. Cook commented on “the number of app stores out there” and Jobs referred to the “four app stores on Android.”


In her ruling on Wednesday, Hamilton wrote that the mere use of “Appstore” by Amazon cannot be taken as a representation that its service is the same as Apple’s.


“Apple has failed to establish that Amazon made any false statement (express or implied) of fact that actually deceived or had the tendency to deceive a substantial segment of its audience,” Hamilton wrote.


A trial on Apple’s remaining claims is scheduled for August.


The case is Apple Inc v. Amazon.com Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 11-01327.


(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr in San Francisco; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Jeffrey Benkoe)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Adam Lambert Criticizes Les Miserables Russell Crowe Responds

Adam Lambert was one of the Americans who forked over millions ($66 million, to be exact) to see Les Miserables over the Christmas holiday and his 9 Tweet review of the film garnered a lot of attention over the weekend.

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"Les Mis: Visually impressive w great Emotional performances. But the score suffered massively with great actors PRETENDING to be singers," Lambert wrote on December 30. "It's an opera. Hollywoods movie musicals treat the singing as the last priority. (Dreamgirls was good). Anne Hathaway as Fantine and Enjolras were the exceptions for me. Helena B Carter and Sasha B Cohen were great too. And I do think it was cool they were singing live- but with that cast, they should have studio recorded and sweetened the vocals. I felt like I should ignore the vocals and focus on the emotional subtext- but the singing was so distracting at times it pulled me out. The industry will say 'these actors were so brave to attempt singing this score live' but why not cast actors who could actually sound good? Sorry for being so harsh but it's so True!"

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Now, an unexpected ally has taken Lambert's side in this debate: Les Miserables star Russell Crowe!

Last night, @BrunetteMom123 Tweeted at Crowe, "Not sure if you saw @adamlambert's comments about Les Miserables. He was pretty opinionated."

The Oscar-winner responded, "I don't disagree with Adam, sure it could have been sweetened, [Les Miserables director Tom] Hooper wanted it raw and real, that's how it is."

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On Wednesday, the singer took back to Twitter to once again talk about the movie.

"My movie review has gone viral. U can spend a whole year praising artists for inspiring work, but one critique gets all the attention. Funny," Lambert tweeted, continuing, "Those raw and real moments when characters broke down or were expressing the ugliness of the human condition were superb. However... My personal opinion: there were times when the vocals weren't able to convey the power, beauty and grace that the score ALSO calls for."

Lambert then shouted out to the original Broadway cast, "I guess I'm a purist for the original LIVE broadway recording when the actors sang the f*ck outta those songs. JUST an opinion... "

And that's when Lambert decided to put the whole thing to rest, "I should prob stop fanning the flames on this one..but i love a good debate- couldnt help myself," adding finally, "One last thing though: Anne Hathaway was so good- had me tearing up. Oscar worthy performance for sure! Ok. #donediscussinglesmiz."

No response yet from Crowe or the cast.

What do you think? Was Adam Lambert right, or was the live singing part of the film's charm? Weigh in below!

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Just sold!








Manhattan

EAST HARLEM $400,000

333 E. 109th St.

One-bedroom, one-bath condo, 675 square feet, with Italian kitchen with stainless-steel appliances and Caesarstone counters and backsplash, tiled-and-teak bath with soaking tub and rainfall shower, washer/dryer and floor-to-ceiling windows; building features gym, courtyard, Jacuzzi, half-basketball court, BBQ, fireplace and lounge with flat-screen TV. Common charges $318, taxes $15. Asking price $430,000, on market 63 weeks. Brokers: Sahar Ziy, Douglas Elliman and Grace Chan, The Corcoran Group

LINCOLN SQUARE $830,000




161 W. 61st St.

One-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath condo, 915 square feet, with foyer, renovated pass-through kitchen, dining alcove, en-suite bath and washer/dryer; building features doorman, garage, gym with pool, sauna and hot tub, garden, storage and bike room. Common charges $1,195, taxes $891. Asking price $850,000, on market 16 weeks. Broker: Monica Manalo, Halstead Property

Long Island

PORT WASHINGTON $368,000

73 Carlton Ave.

Two-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath duplex condo, 1,228 square feet, with eat-in kitchen with dishwasher, dining room, wall-to-wall carpeting and deck; building features parking, laundry, storage and bike room. Common charges $394, taxes $275. Asking price $399,000, on market three weeks. Brokers: Kathleen Christie, Laffey Fine Homes and Heidi Karagianis, Accents on Real Estate










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Housing, jobs key to lifting S&P toward record




















With it appearing that Washington lawmakers are working their way past the “fiscal cliff,” many analysts say that the outlook for stocks in 2013 is good, as a recovering housing market and an improving jobs outlook helps the economy maintain a slow, but steady recovery.

Reasonable returns in 2013 would send the S&P 500 toward, and possibly past, its record close of 1,565 reached in October 2007.

A mid-year rally in 2012 pushed stocks to their highest in more than four years. Both the Standard & Poor’s 500 and the Dow Jones industrial average posted strong gains in 2012. Those advances came despite uncertainty about the outcome of the presidential election and bouts of turmoil from Europe, where policy makers finally appear to be getting a grip on the region’s debt crisis.





“As you remove little bits of uncertainty, investors can then once again return to focusing on the fundamentals,” says Joseph Tanious, a global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds. “Corporate America is actually doing quite well.”

Although earnings growth of S&P 500 listed companies dipped as low as 0.8 percent in the summer, analysts are predicting that it will rebound to average 9.5 percent for 2013, according to data from S&P Capital IQ. Companies have also been hoarding cash. The amount of cash and cash-equivalents being held by companies listed in the S&P 500 climbed to an all-time high $1 trillion at the end of September, 65 percent more than five years ago, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Assuming a budget deal is reached in a reasonable amount of time, investors will be more comfortable owning stocks in 2013, allowing valuations to rise, says Tanious.

Stocks in the S&P 500 index are currently trading on a price-to-earnings multiple of about 13.5, compared with the average of 17.9 since 1988, according to S&P Capital IQ data. The ratio rises when investors are willing to pay more for a stock’s future earnings potential.

The stock market will also likely face less drag from the European debt crisis this year, said Steven Bulko, the chief investment officer at Lombard Odier Investment Managers. While policy makers in Europe have yet to come up with a comprehensive solution to the region’s woes, they appear to have a better handle on the region’s problems than they have for quite some time.

Stocks fell in the second quarter of 2012 as investors fretted that the euro region’s government debt crisis was about to engulf Spain and possibly Italy, increasing the chances of a dramatic slowdown in global economic growth.

“There is still some heavy lifting that needs to be done in Europe,” said Bulko. Now, though, “we are dealing with much more manageable risk than we have had in the past few years.”

Next year may also see an increase in mergers and acquisitions as companies seeks to make use of the cash on their balance sheets, says Jarred Kessler, global head of equities at broker Cantor Fitzgerald.

While the number of M&A deals has gradually crept higher in the past four years, the dollar value of the deals remains well short of the total reached five years ago. U.S. targeted acquisitions totaled $964 billion through Dec. 27, according to data tracking firm Dealogic. That’s slightly down from last year’s total of $1 trillion and about 40 percent lower than in 2007, when deals worth $1.6 trillion were struck.





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Man grazed by stray bullet in Miami on New Year’s Eve




















A stray bullet fired into the air just after midnight on New Year’s Eve struck a man as he celebrated at a party in Miami, according to police.

The bullet grazed the man’s upper left shoulder. Paramedics treated him outside the Allapattah home at Northwest 25th Avenue and 32nd Street. The man, who was not identified, wasn’t taken to a hospital.

Miami police spokesman Detective Willie Moreno confirmed that the victim was struck by a stray bullet.





Homeowner Randy Ruiz said the injured man was a friend of a friend who was visiting his home on New Year’s Eve.

“We had a lot of friends and family in my yard, and fireworks were being fired off,” Ruiz said. “Just after midnight, one of the guests complained of blood on his shirt. So we quickly ran over to see what was going on and saw there was blood on his left arm.”

Neighbor Barbara Jimeno, who has three grandchildren between the ages of one and four, said she was alarmed by what happened.

“It could happen to me or my grandchildren, who live around the block,” she said.

The injury followed a series of warnings from the Miami mayor, Miami police and activists about the dangers of firing bullets into the air on New Years Eve.





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Armed robbers hit Paris Apple store






PARIS (Reuters) – Armed robbers targeted an Apple Inc store in central Paris on New Year’s Eve, taking thousands of euros (dollars) worth of goods, a police official said on Tuesday.


The robbery took place at about 9 p.m. (1900 GMT) on Monday, three hours after closing time at one of Apple‘s flagship stores behind the Paris Opera which sells products ranging from iPhones and iPads to Mac computers.






The police official declined to comment on reports the thieves walked away with about 1 million euros ($ 1.32 million) of loot, saying the company was still evaluating the loss.


Christophe Crepin from the police union UNSA told reporters four masked and armed individuals forced their way into the shop and afterwards escaped in a van.


“They were well prepared. As the majority of police were busy watching the Champs Elysees (for New Year’s Eve celebrations), the robbers took advantage of this opportunity,” he said.


($ 1 = 0.7585 euros)


(Reporting By Thierry Leveque and John Irish; Editing by Michael Roddy)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Taylor Swift Harry Styles New Years Eve Kiss

Taylor Swift and Harry Styles had equally amazing 2012's, and they kissed good-bye to the preceding 365 days together in Times Square last night.

After singing on ABC's New Year's Rocking Eve, Swift and Styles braved the crowds to watch the ball drop. And to the hordes of fans who'd gathered to count down to midnight, "Haylor's" ensuing smooch ended up being more captivating than all the twinkling lights in the sky.

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An ugly deal








Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was a model of understatement yesterday when he declared: “This shouldn’t be the model for how to do things around here.”

No kidding.

With a pre-dawn vote yesterday, the Senate overwhelmingly approved a compromise package that undoes the Bush tax cuts for individuals making $400,000 a year and families making $450,000, raises several other taxes and limits personal exemptions.

But the deal was far from done late yesterday: In the House, conservative Republicans had serious misgivings with its terms, and while the expectation was that it ultimately will pass, there were no guarantees.





AP



Mitch McConnell





So, barring a GOP revolt, the so-called “fiscal cliff” has been avoided: there will be no automatic tax-rate hike for all Americans instead of just the wealthiest. But, as Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) noted, the cliffhanger has been traded in for “a journey over the fiscal mountains.”

That’s because the last-minute deal simply postponed dealing with spending cuts, entitlement reform and trimming the national debt for another two months.

Indeed, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the package raises taxes by $620 billion while cutting spending by only $15 billion — a 41-1 ratio. Plus it adds $329 billion to the federal deficit in 2013, increasing it by $3.9 trillion over 10 years.

That means an even bigger battle soon. And, almost certainly, an even bigger political drama than the one America just witnessed.

This time, however, Obama will be without his biggest rhetorical weapon: his insistence on what he so misleadingly called “tax fairness.” Which, Republicans hope, means he’ll have to give more ground, provided they hold firm.

Because the fiscal-cliff package does next to nothing on the national debt and the budget deficit, at the risk of damaging the economy as it struggles to move forward.

In fact, the president’s chief goal throughout the talks was blatantly political, to portray the GOP as eager to sacrifice the middle class in order to protect the rich. (How ironic that most Democrats once vehemently opposed what they’re now staunchly defending as “tax cuts for the middle class.”)

Yet Obama — whose only contribution to the negotiations was creating ill will on both sides — made it clear that he hasn’t finished hiking taxes: Even before the House vote, the White House said that “continuing to ask the wealthy to do a little bit more” — i.e., pay even more taxes — “will be part of a balanced approach.”

In other words, he’s going to play the class-warfare card for everything it’s worth.

But the fiscal-cliff compromise actually brings in $200 billion less in tax revenue than did House Speaker John Boehner’s Plan B, which the president opposed (as, embarrassingly for Boehner, did House Republicans).

The whole idea of the “fiscal cliff” was to create a situation so precarious that Washington would have no choice but to reach a comprehensive solution.

But congressional fecklessness and presidential arrogance combined to once again avoid the unpleasant — but necessary — business of restoring the nation’s economic stability.

For all the back-patting now under way on Capitol Hill, the road ahead is sown with mines.

Take 10, America. It ain’t over.



Have an opinion on this Post editorial? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!










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