I wonder if Mayor Thomas M. Menino is reading the business press headlines down in the Big Apple.

If so, he’s got to be awfully steamed out Vornado’s latest spending spree.

The Big Apple developer has been in hot water with Tommy since 2008, when it halted, not long after demolition began, plans to renovate the old Filene’s retail palace and build a tower next door.

Instead, Vornado and local
partner John Hynes left a big hole in the heart of Downtown Crossing and more
recently have spent months trying to find a buyer to take the big mess off their
hands.

Of course, that’s going
nowhere fast – among other things City Hall canceled the project’s approvals.

But as its big Boston
plans languish, Vornado is spending up a storm in New York.

Vornado has reportedly raised as much as $700 million from a Chinese investor to start construction on
a long-planned tower over the Port Authority’s bus terminal.

In fact, Vornado, under pressure from the Port Authority to move on the tower project after sitting on it for more than a decade, has decided to start construction without a major
tenant lined up.

Those New Yorkers certainly know how to turn the screws!

Meanwhile, Vornado, also recently shelled out more than $500 million to buy stakes in a pair of troubled New York
office towers.

Well, as they say, charity begins at home.

It looks like March Madness has gotten out of hand.

Vault.com recently released its annual Office Betting Survey.

Nearly 72 percent of those polled owned up to taking part in some form of office betting during the NCCA tournament.

Of course, it’s not clear where the survey was taken.

Mohegan Sun, anyone?

Now here’s an idea – tax breaks for investors who put money into troubled office towers and suburban office parks.

That’s the brainchild of U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), who reached out across party lines to proposed the Community Recovery and Enhancement Act.

The bill would dole out generous tax breaks and other incentives to investors who pump cash into underwater (as in the value having fallen below the debt) buildings. Most of the money - 80 percent – would have to go toward reducing debt.  The remaining 20 percent would be designated for energy efficiency projects and other building improvements.

The proposal, however, comes a little late with fears receding that we will see a flood of foreclosures in the commercial real estate market to match the battled residential sector.

We can’t save everyone – nor should we.

One owner’s office building bust, after all, is a potential opportunity for some buyer out there.

Really now, how could anyone be shocked that Fidelity is closing its Marlborough campus?

In shifting more than a thousand workers to corporate campuses in New Hampshire and Rhode Island, Fidelity is pursuing a policy of choosing to expand in lower cost states that goes back years now.

Fidelity’s job export strategy kicked off in earnest back in early 2006, when the company put into place plans to start moving employees form a Boston tower to a new campus then under construction in Rhode Island.

I know it well, having been the first to report the big move back when I was a business reporter at the Herald. I followed that with other stories of big Fidelity expansions in Texas and North Carolina.

The Globe more recently has begun to look at Fidelity’s job shifting strategy as well.

So I guess I have a hard time getting my mind around Gov. Deval Patrick’s comments that he was taken by surprise by Fidelity’s latest move.

To be fair, it did come as the governor was jet setting around the world on his big international trade mission.

But when it comes to Fidelity’s decision to limit its future expansion here in its home state, the writing has been on the wall for a very, very long time.

What’s surprising is that no one has bothered to read it.

The Connecticut giant was once seen as a shoe in for a casino license if and when the Bay State legalizes expanded gambling.

But of course that was before the news broke that Mohegan Sun is struggling to avoid a default on a big chunk of its $2 billion debt load.

The tribal casino is exploring a deal with its lenders to restructure its debt, but how that will turn out is anyone’s guess.

The bond rating agencies, to say the least, have been a tad bit nervous.

The uncertainty hanging over Mohegan’s finances, however, should make backers of its plans to build a $600 million gambling palace in Palmer nervous as well.

Given the tribal casino operator may need to have hundreds of millions on hand to secure a license and satisfy demands of Massachusetts regulators, the fact it has just a little north of $90 million in cash in the bank is hardly reassuring.

I guess then it’s not all that surprising that Mohegan executives, in a recent editorial board meeting with the The Republican in Springfield, spilled the beans on their Plan B.

Earlier plans for 3,000 slot machines have been downsized to 2,500, while a 4,000 to 5,000 seat theater will now become a ballroom.

And, of course, Mohegan will be looking to bring on investors to help pay for it all.

Just five years ago Mohegan probably could have bankrolled the project on its own with a second thought - after all it then had far grander expansion plans for its campus.

Well times have certainly changed.

Well let’s just say there are growing signs the worst economic downturn since the Depression has left a lasting and indelible imprint on the office market.

Basically, after being forced to squeeze out any fat they could find in their operations in the dark days of 2008 and 2009, corporate bosses in Greater Boston and beyond learned to operate leaner and meaner than ever thought imaginable.

Just take the chat I had the other day with a downtown Boston lawyer who is also a shrewd observer of the local real estate scene.

He noted that a number of major Back Bay and Financial District law firms were renewing leases, but taking smaller amounts of space.

Even more intriguing, one firm with a large swath of suites in the Prudential tower has reconfigured all its offices so they are pretty much the same. It’s a space saver – and a major cultural shift as well. No more mini palaces for the top players.

It’s where the office market, here in Boston and across the country, appear to be going, notes Jones Lang LaSalle in a recent “office occupiers” report.

All the downsizing and layoffs over the last two years have left companies sitting on big blocks of space they no longer use.

“As hiring continues to strengthen, companies will be poised to expand their office footprints again, but location decisions will be placed under more scrutiny than ever before and real estate will take on a more strategic role within the overall business,” said Jones Lang LaSalle Senior Vice President John Linell. “Enhancing productivity will take center stage through workplace mobility programs that lower corporate real estate costs, increase collaboration, generate higher space utilization rates, and help companies meet their sustainability objectives.”

Corporate tenants have been scrambling to take advantage of low rents while they can.

A popular tactic has been to strike early and hard and wring an advantageous lease renewal from a skittish landlord.

But with the market picking up, tower and building owners in Greater Boston are no longer so eager just to cut a deal in order to lock a tenant in place at a below market rent, Jones Lang LaSalle reports.

“Recently landlords have become bullish on the future, and in some cases are now resistant to negotiations with tenants well in advance of lease expirations,” the real estate firm reports in a national “office occupier” report.

And there are other signs that landlords are regaining their balance as well. While free rent is still being offered, the amount went down last year for the first time in three years.

Tenant improvement allowances also dropped, albeit by a modest 3.3 percent, in the last few quarters of 2010, Jones Lang LaSalle finds.

Basically, the real estate gravy train for corporate tenants is reaching the end of the line.