Month: January 2016

Brooke Shields, now entering her fifth decade of acting, is very clear on one thing: She will never stop acting.

“You are going to have to drag me away. You are going to have the hearse waiting. I’ll say my last words and you can put me in the box,” Shields says in this month’s issue of Luxury Listings NYC.

Shields, who first modeled at age 11 months for Ivory and went on to controversial roles as a child in “Pretty Baby,” “Endless Love” and “Blue Lagoon,” has had a robust and surprisingly diverse career. In recent years, she branched out into comedy, defying those who saw her as just a pretty face.

In her latest role, Shields plays a Manhattan-lawyer-turned florist with a penchant for solving crimes in the “Flower Shop Mysteries,” premiering this month on the Hallmark Channel. “It is sort of like ‘Murder She Wrote,’” she says.

We also went into the home of entrepreneur and TV personality Barbara Corcoran to talk about success, insecurity and sex.

In Luxe Life, we present 10 luxury wellness products that you can use to get a jumpstart on your New Years resolution. Speaking of the new year, LLNYC looked back at 2015’s record auction sales, including the world’s most expensive handbag and Queen Victoria’s knickers.

Finally, don’t forget to check out our round up of the season’s best party pics and our neighborhood stories, which this issue features: a trip to the city’s first upscale meditation studio; an inside look at Christie’s luxury handbag auction; a review of Lululemon’s new flagship store and an interview with designer Halston’s former lover about his wild night with Andy Warhol at a famed Upper East Side townhouse.

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Enjoy!

Source: The January/February issue of LLNYC is live!

William Skelley

IFunding, one of the early pioneers of real estate crowdfunding, is being sued for fraud. The complaint by a former business partner, filed in New York Supreme Court late last month, highlights concerns that the young and lightly-regulated crowdfunding industry could be prone to misconduct.

The plaintiff, boutique investment bank CapStack Partners, is suing over two real estate financing deals the firms partnered on with iFunding last year.

The suit alleges that iFunding failed to raise the agreed-upon sum through its platform, and then repeatedly lied about its performance in a series of intentional delays and brinkmanship, causing CapStack “injury and detriment.”

CapStack is also suing iFunding for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, fraudulent inducement, fraudulent concealment and deceptive business practices, and seeks damages of at least $585,000.

New York-based iFunding, which raises funds for real estate projects through an online platform, rubbished the accusations. “We believe the lawsuit is completely without merit and intend to contest it vigorously,” the firm’s founder and CEO William Skelley told The Real Deal.

In August, CapStack and iFunding signed separate deals to crowdfund two real estate developments, one in Missouri and one in Ohio. IFunding would raise the funds through its website, CapStack would act as an intermediary between the platform and the developers, and the two would split the brokerage fees 50/50. According to the suit, iFunding agreed to raise $2 million for the first project and $3.2 million for the second, but soon fell short.

It ended up raising only $1 million and $1.25 million, respectively, from investors, CapStack claims. The suit alleges iFunding repeatedly lied to Capstack about how much money it had raised and about supposed commitments from individual investors. It also claims that iFunding lied to its own investors about how much money it had raised for the projects, inflating numbers on its website.

On Oct. 9, three days before the Ohio deal was scheduled to close, iFunding’s CEO William Skelley allegedly told CapStack that he would only release the $1.25 million raised if CapStack agreed to “double the money” – i.e. double the share of the fees iFunding would get.

“Acting in extreme bad faith, (iFunding’s counsel Robin Sosnow) and Skelley made clear that if iFunding refused to immediately sign the revised agreement, iFunding would not deliver the investors’ funds and the entire transaction would collapse,” the suit alleges. Put under the gun, CapStack agreed to the revised terms, it alleges, meaning it didn’t get its share of the fees.

“IFunding’s and Skelley’s conduct was wanton, willful and malicious and warrants the imposition of punitive damages,” the complaint reads.

Skelley called the accusations “completely unfounded.”

“We are very proud to have raised over $4 million dollars in a matter of ten days for two projects that CapStack brought to us late last year,” he said.

Founded in 2012, IFunding was a trailblazer in the real estate crowdfunding space. In April, TRD reported on a falling-out the company had with former New York governor David Patterson, who briefly served on the startup’s board.

Source: Crowdfunding pioneer iFunding sued for fraud

55 Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District (inset: Michael Shah)

Michael Shah’s Delshah Capital secured nearly $82 million through the first phase of the firm’s bond issuance on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange this week.

Shah becomes the first non-Jewish developer to tap Israel’s corporate bond market, which has become an increasingly popular source of capital for New York-based real estate firms, according to sources with knowledge of the issuance.

Delshah raised around 320 million shekel, or roughly $81.5 million, through the institutional tender phase of the debt offering, which was open to Israeli banks, pension funds and financial institutions.

A portfolio of 13 properties with a combined appraised value of $495 million backed the deal. The properties include more than 1,100 federally subsidized, affordable housing units in Staten Island, as well as four commercial and six mixed-use rental properties in Manhattan.

The company’s issuance noted that around $38 million of the proceeds will be used to repay senior debt on four of Delshah’s Manhattan properties, with the balance going toward acquisitions and potentially buying out joint venture partners.

The deal was “incredibly well-received,” Shah told The Real Deal, adding that the proceeds of the issuance leaves Delshah “well-poised for future acquisitions.”

Israeli credit ratings agency Midroog noted that Delshah’s portfolio features assets in areas “characterized by stability and financial strength” that are “enjoying growth in recent years,” such as Soho and the Meatpacking District.

The East Village-based firm issued two series of bonds – one series of unsecured bonds issued at an interest rate of 6.9 percent, and a second series of secured bonds closed at an interest rate of 4.6 percent.

The unsecured series will mature in September 2021, while the secured series bonds will mature in September 2023, sources said.

Israeli financial giant Clal Finance Underwriting is the distributor on the bond offering, with Delshah advised by Israeli financial consultants InFin, led by Yehonatan Cohen and Yossi Levi.

The offering was characterized by robust demand from Israeli institutional investors, sources said, to the tune of about $127 million.

Delshah’s issuance is now set for a public tender next week open to a wider array of investors, with the potential to raise another $18 million once the issuance is sealed.

Source: Delshah raises M on Israeli bond market

Susan Little Jason Haber

For the second year in a row, the number of brokers and agents in Brooklyn and Queens rose faster than in Manhattan, an indication that brokers are following buyers and sellers into neighborhoods with rising inventory and increased prices.

“Brokers understand where the deals are getting done and there’s a lot of that in the outer boroughs,” said Jason Haber, a broker at Warburg Realty. “More people are living in these areas… and you need brokers to service those people.”

Overall, the rise in the number of licensed real estate professionals in the city as a whole increased at a slower pace than a year ago — 4 percent in 2015, compared to a 5.5 percent jump in 2014.

But less so in Queens and Brooklyn, where the city’s biggest firms are bulking up their sales efforts. In November, Douglas Elliman tripled its space in Park Slope, a month after Citi Habitats bought Brooklyn-based brokerage firm Aptsandlofts.com.

Citi Habitats’ acquisition “speaks volumes” about the outer borough market, according to Charles Doolan, the co-founder and president of Manhattan-based Kian Realty. “Citi Habitats did whatever they had to do to increase their presence in Brooklyn, they wanted to do it quickly rather than grow organically.”

In Brooklyn, where the number of brokers and salespersons rose by 6.5 percent to 10,663 in 2015, buyers are willing to leave established neighborhoods if they can trade up to a townhouse with outdoor space from an apartment, said Gabriele Sewtz, a Park Slope-based broker with Compass.

Even in neighborhoods like Bay Ridge, the big name brokers are starting to enter the fray, according to Susan Little, a broker at Corcoran. Little and colleague Clare Saliba used to largely compete against mom-and-pop brokerage shops, but that’s no longer the case, she said.

Agent growth has also been accelerating in Queens, where, according to the New York Department of State, the total number of agents jumped by 6.0 percent to 11,702, partially on the back of the need to sell in areas surrounding large megadevelopments like Hunter’s Point South in Long Island City.

It’s not yet the same story in the Bronx, where the number of salespeople increased just 0.6 percent to 2,512.

“In the Bronx, there’s not a lot of inventory,” said David Maundrell III, an executive vice president of new development at Citi Habitats. That soon will be changing as developments like the Chetrit Group and Somerset Partners’ South Bronx rise.

Source: Number of agents, brokers jumps in Brooklyn and Queens

Source: TRD analysis of DOB permit applications of at least 15,000 square feet

The median price for a Manhattan apartment just hit $1.15 million for the first time, and a big drop in projects added to the city pipeline won’t do anything to bring that number down.

During 2015, some 28,836 new residential units were proposed for construction or conversion in projects of at least 15,000 square feet, according to a TRD analysis of permit applications from the Department of Buildings for all of New York City. But that number is significantly lower than the more than 43,000 such units that TRD could count for 2014, meaning a 33 percent plunge in planned apartments across the five boroughs will also mark what the New York Times called “The Year of the Condo.”

Source: TRD analysis of DOB permit applications of at least 15,000 square feet.

The most active month for residential filings in 2015 was March, when 3,674 qualifying units were submitted. Compare that to September of 2014, a jam-packed month that saw over 9,000 proposed units, a figure bolstered by Two Trees’ Domino Sugar building at 325 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg (522 units), Red Apple Group’s 86 Fleet Place in Downtown Brooklyn (440 units), and Clipper Equities’ and Chetrit Group’s 77, 85 and 87 Commercial Street in Greenpoint (720 units).

Developers applied to build far fewer of these megaprojects in 2015, and as such, the average monthly unit count was about 2,400, with the lightest month being April, when the unit count dipped below 1,000. As TRD previously reported, the number of residential buildings came down in 2015 as well, with developers planning significantly fewer buildings over 200 feet tall or with more than 200 units.

“I think the price of land increased so much over the last year that developers are pushing back because they cannot make sense of the numbers or get construction financing,” said Robin Schneiderman, director of business development at Halstead Property Development Marketing. “This is a healthy sign for the market as sellers need to come back down to reality,” he said.

Steve Kliegerman, president of HPDM, said 2015’s sliding numbers “are not all that surprising.” He echoed the sentiment on the high price of development sites while adding that he was seeing renewed activity in that market­––though the problem remains that there are very few such sites left.

“I do not think we will see the same level of permit applications we did in 2014 simply due to the available supply of large sites and the demand that was created due to the lack of construction from 2009 to 2013,” he said.

Related: See the top 10 permits filed in Manhattan during 2015

In hotel filings, the year-over-year unit drop was even more significant. For 2014, TRD counted 11,630 proposed units in known hotel projects of at least 15,000 square feet. In 2015, that number fell to 5,237. The dearth of hotel units added to the pipeline will not surprise anyone who has been following the New York hotel industry–in spring of last year, hotel research firm STR predicted that supply would peak in 2015 and then begin dropping in 2016 and beyond. With far fewer units sent to the Department of Buildings during 2015 than in the year prior, a decline in hotel pipeline and eventual supply now seems inevitable.

Queens accounted for close to half of all hotel units applied for all of New York City during 2015. Qualifying Manhattan hotel units tumbled the most, from over 7,000 in 2014 down to around 2,000 the next year.

Despite the drop from the year prior, December was a strong month for hotel applications, with 954 proposed hotel units and 426,000 square feet sent to the DOB from the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. The largest hotel filing came from Chartwell Hospitality in Jamaica, Queens where Gene Kaufman Architects will design two 11-story towers containing a total of 362 rooms.

Source: TRD analysis of DOB permit applications of at least 15,000 square feet

In residential filings, builder aspirations were capped at 300,000 square feet, with the largest application also coming from Jamaica, Queens, where Artimus Constuction plans to build a 26-story tower with 380 apartments. The most active borough for residential plans in December was Brooklyn, where 18 filings totaled 707 units and more than 600,000 square feet. Queens contributed the second most apartments, 618, and 530,000 square feet. Manhattan resi plans were mostly small, but the Salvation Army came in with a late Christmas present on Dec. 30 when it filed to build an 11-story affordable housing tower for seniors at 2306 Third Avenue, with 232 units. Only one Bronx project — two affordable buildings in Longwood — was large enough to make our count and, as usual, nothing filed in Staten Island measured more than 10,000 square feet.

As for commercial filings, Ziel Feldman’s HFZ Capital Group is planning a 243,000-square-foot office and retail building at 76 11^th Avenue in Chelsea, where it will also submit plans for 300 condo units in a separate tower. Woods Bagot is listed as the filing architect, although previous reporting had indicated that Bjarke Ingels was designing. In Brooklyn, Steiner Studios will add another building to its ever-growing collection of studio spaces with a 179,00-square-foot structure for six soundstages. And in the Bronx, a 100,000-square-foot warehouse will replace vacant lots and an auto-shop at 2325 Hollers Avenue in Eastchester.

Source: December DOB Report: Planned apartments, hotel rooms sank in 2015

From left: Lane Altschuler, 478 Central Park West on the Upper West Side and Maurice Mann

Maurice Mann’s Mann Realty was ordered to pay hefty compensation to one of its Upper West Side tenants after a judge ruled they’d overcharged him for years.

Lane Altschuler, a resident of 478 Central Park West, will receive a $877,000 refund and have his $3,750-a-month rent reduced to below $800 a month.

The construction supervisor argued that his apartment was illegally removed from rent stabilization. His decision to sue was prompted by a 2009 state appeals court ruling that found landlords can’t remove apartments from rent regulation at buildings receiving tax subsidies, the New York Post reported.

Mann received $310,000 in J-51 tax benefits when it created 26 new condo units at the building, beginning in 2012.

The damages were equal to three times the amount Mann was found to have overcharged.

The extreme penalties that the appellate court has now upheld, without any trial, are “unprecedented,” Magda Cruz, Mann’s lawyer, told the Post.

“The owner in this case is like thousands of other owners throughout New York City who had rented their vacated apartments in reliance upon the interpretation of the luxury deregulation law prior to Roberts,” she added, referring to the 2009 ruling. [NYP] – Ariel Stulberg

Source: Mann Realty to pay 7K, prorate rent for overcharging tenant

Donna Olshan (credit: Tobias Truvillion)

From the January issue: Donna Olshan is purging all the paper in her office, from condo prospectuses to typewritten listing sheets. She says real estate needs to digitize. All this paper on the chopping block stems from work at Olshan Realty over the past 35 years. Olshan graduated from George Washington University in 1976 as a journalism and political science major and worked as a sports reporter at Newsday for a few years. In 1979, her father, Marvin Olshan, a prominent NYC lawyer, suggested that she get licensed as a salesperson and try to sell a studio in her building. She sold it in three days. The next year she founded her eponymous company and, as she tells it, went on to become the first in NYC to do corporate relocation. [more]

Source: At the Desk of: Donna Olshan

The North Law Building at the United Nations headquarters on the Upper East Side (credit: UN Photos/Paulo Filgueiras)

The North Lawn Building, which housed critical United Nations operations during the complex’s $2.2 billion renovation, is set to be demolished.

The nearly-windowless steel and concrete structure, located along 46th and 47th streets on the Far East Side of Manhattan, will be taken down over the next few months, after just six year in existence.

The UN limited the demolition contract to just under $17 million, with the aim of attracting contractors that would recycle the building’s materials. Wantaugh, NY-based Gramercy Group was the winning bidder, the New York Times reported.

It cost $140 million to build. The renovation as a whole cost $2.2 billion.

The site will return to being an open space. A piece of the Berlin Wall given to the complex in 2002 will return, as will Antun Augustincic’s equestrian “Peace” sculpture. – [NYT] – Ariel Stulberg

Source: UN’s North Lawn Building to be demolished

VTS co-founders Nick Romito, Ryan Masiello and Karl Baum

Cloud-based leasing and portfolio management startup VTS is partnering with data company S&P Capital IQ to buff up its research capabilities for both landlords and brokers, the tech startup announced Thursday.

Under a new partnership, VTS’ landlord and broker customers will have access to 4.85 million public and private company records compiled by S&P Capital. The move will enable landlords to vet tenants by looking at their revenue, income, debt, competitors and other data.

“Just because a tenant signed a lease in the building, doesn’t mean they can pay rent for 15 years,” said Ryan Masiello, VTS’ chief revenue officer, who said the deal’s been in the works for several months.

“The idea behind it is we wanted to bring a new data set to the platform,” he said. “We’re providing information about companies that people just can’t get.”

In addition to S&P’s company-specific data, VTS is introducing a marketing intelligence tool that brokers can use to identify prospective tenants. Landlords and brokers will also be able to analyze which industry groups and submarkets are most active, and what office size is most popular among certain types of tenants. “By understanding which tenants are in the market, you may understand what drives future leasing velocity and position spaces to cater to those tenants,” Romito said.

In July, VTS raised $21 million in a Series B round, bringing the total investment in VTS to $34 million. OpenView Venture Partners led the most recent round. Most of the funds are being used to develop new products and enhance the company’s customer service.

VTS declined to disclose financial terms of its partnership with S&P, which is part of McGraw Hill Financial and competes with Bloomberg and Thompson Reuters.

Romito said the five-year-old startup plans to announce a number of new partnerships throughout the rest of the year.

Source: Flush with funding, VTS strikes deal with data firm S&P Capital

One World Trade Center (inset from left: Mark Baker of Progenics and Douglas Durst)

A biotech firm specializing in cancer and HIV medications is the latest new tenant at One World Trade Center.

Progenics Pharmaceuticals took 26,500 square feet of space on the 47th floor, signing a 14-year lease with a five-year renewal option.

The building’s owners – the Durst Organization and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey – asked $78 per square foot in rent, according the lease documents, which Progenics published in a regulatory filing.

Eric Engelhardt of Durst and Tara Stacom, Justin Royce, Barry Zeller, Connor Daugstrup and Peter Trivelas of Cushman & Wakefield represented the landlords. Patricia Ardigo and Joel Wechsler of CBRE represented Progenics.

The New York Post first reported the news.

The landlords announced two weeks ago that 2 million of the tower’s 3 million square feet of space had already been leased.

Developer SHVO took 12,000 square feet at the building last month, with plans to open a showroom for its 360,000-square-foot 125 Greenwich Street condo tower. – Ariel Stulberg

Source: Progenics Pharmaceuticals takes 26.5K sf at 1WTC

From left: Robert Gladstone and rendering of 45 Broad Street

Madison Equities and Pizzarotti Group’s plans for their $86 million development site in the Financial District just got significantly bigger.

Madison, led by Robert Gladstone, and Italy-based Pizzarotti have upsized their planned residential tower at 45 Broad Street, with the building now set to rise 86 stories and top out at around 1,100 feet – giving it a place among the supertall structures that promise to reshape the city’s skyline.

CetraRuddy, the architectural firm behind One Madison and Walker Tower, is designing the project, and the developers expect to break ground in late October or November of this year with a targeted completion date in 2018, according to Curbed.

The 245-unit building will cater to “entry- and mid-level buyers,” Pizzarotti CEO Rance McFarland told Curbed, with amenities including a swimming pool, gym, and lounge. Five floors at the property will be earmarked for commercial or retail use.

Madison and Pizzarotti entered contract on the vacant lot at 45 Broad Street last summer, as The Real Deal reported. The developers closed on the site in October for $86 million and originally planned a 65-story condo tower spanning up to 290,000 square feet on the property.

But the project is now expected to rise a further 21 stories than initially expected, with the additional height meaning 45 Broad Street is expected to tower over Financial District neighbors 40 Wall Street and One Wall Street. [Curbed] – Rey Mashayekhi

Source: Madison, Pizzarotti scale up 45 Broad Street resi tower

Rick Hayduk and Stuyvesant Town

The Blackstone Group and Ivanhoe Cambridge opted not to hire an outside firm to manage Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village. Instead, they will launch their own property management firm.

Rick Hayduk, who until recently managed the Boca Raton Resort & Club in Florida, took over as general manager of the 11,200-unit complex on Jan. 1, two weeks after closing on the acquisition for $5.3 billion.

Town & Village first reported the news.

“We’ve listened extensively to the tenants and community and have taken their feedback into account as we build a new property management company under Rick’s leadership,” Blackstone’s co-head of U.S. acquisitions Nadeem Meghji said in a statement. “Rick has worked with Blackstone properties for almost a decade and is someone we know well and trust.”

According to the statement, Hayduk will live in the complex. “My wife Carol, our two daughters and I are excited to join the PCVST community and we look forward to getting to know our neighbors,” he said.

Hayduk is taking over from CompassRock, the property management arm of special servicer CWCapital, which had been managing the property since 2012.

Source: Blackstone, Ivanhoe launch own property management firm to run Stuy Town

450 West 31st Street in Hudson Yards and Amir Korangy

The Real Deal was born in Amir Korangy’s Prospect Heights walk-up in 2003, and then moved to a renovated townhouse in Crown Heights (long before the neighborhood’s yuppie transformation). The publication’s first real office was a former psychic’s digs on 23rd Street just off of Madison Square Park. We quickly outgrew that space and moved to our current West 29th Street location. And now, 13 years after it all began, it’s time for another big change.

New York City’s first and most popular real estate news magazine is moving to Hudson Yards, the New York Post reported Wednesday.

TRD paid $8.5 million, or $739 per square foot, for an 11,500-square-foot commercial co-op at 450 West 31st Street. Korangy will shell out another $1 million on renovations being overseen by MESH Architectures.

“Nothing says you believe in New York City real estate more than buying New York City real estate,” Korangy told the Post. “Being the worst building on the best block is usually a good real estate play,” he added. The property is a former chocolate factory that sits between a new hotel and 360 Tenth Avenue, a $3 billion mixed-use project being developed by former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt.

EVO Real Estate Group’s Todd Korren and Christopher Hagerup represented TRD, while the landlord was represented by Redwood Realty’s Jeff Berman.

Korangy said he plans to hire another 11 employees by the time the company moves to its new spot in the spring. TRD has been active in Miami since 2008, and our Los Angeles operation is scheduled to go live on Jan. 18. [NYP] — Hiten Samtani

Source: The Real Deal is Hudson Yards bound

Betsy von Furstenberg and her home in the Bolivar at 230 Central Park West

From Luxury Listings NYC: Park views never come cheap. But the 16th-floor home of noted Broadway actress and socialite Betsy von Furstenberg just sold for a stunning $2.5 million over ask. [more]

Source: Late actress Betsy von Furstenberg’s CPW pad sells for .5M

Michael Shvo and rendering of 100 Varick Street in Soho (credit: Itzhaki)

Michael Shvo picked up another Hudson Square parcel, which he plans to add to the site of his planned 25-story condo project next door, known as 100 Varick Street.The developer bought a piece of 555 Broome Street – the building’s two-story annex – paying $9 million to the Door, a youth nonprofit which owns 83 percent of the building.

SHVO is planning a Renzo Piano-designed, 242,000-square-foot condominium building at the site, along with partners Bizzi & Partners Development and Halpern Real Estate Ventures. That building will stand 25 stories and house 115 condo units.

The plans also call for 17,000 square feet of commercial space and 750 square feet for a community facility.

Including this purchase, the partners paid $145 million for the land for the project, the New York Observer reported. That included the main site – also known as 565 Broome Street – along with four residential buildings at 58-64 Watts Street and 94,000 square feet in air rights from 555 Broome Street.

Late last month, SVHO leased 12,000 square feet at One World Trade Center, with plans to use it as a sales office for the firm’s planned condo building at 125 Greenwich Street. [NYO] – Ariel Stulberg

Source: SHVO expanding 100 Varick Street project

522 Fulton Street in Brooklyn (inset: Haim Chera)

Haim Chera’s Crown Acquisitions snapped up two commercial buildings in Downtown Brooklyn for $30 million, according to property records filed with the city Wednesday.

The two adjacent retail-and-office buildings, located at 522 and 526 Fulton Street, include 142,480 square feet of buildable space between Hanover Place and Flatbush Avenue.

Lloyd Goldman’s Midtown-based BLDG Management owned the four-story properties since 2010. Burger King recently 3,500 square feet at 522 Fulton.

The buildings are located near another Crown-owned property, at 490 Fulton Street. In May, the firm inked a lease with Forever 21 for a 40,000-square-foot space in the building. Records also show that Crown owns 452 Fulton Street, an eight-story, mixed-use building. In May, Crown and Oxford Properties Group bought the remaining 50 percent of the Olympic Tower for $652 million.

A representative for Crown could not immediately be reached for comment.

Source: Crown pays M for two DoBro commercial buildings

Legg Mason’s Joe Sullivan, 86 Trinity Place in the Financial District and Stephen Furnary

Global investment manager Legg Mason is in exclusive negotiations to buy an 80 percent stake in Midtown-based real estate investor Clarion Partners.

The deal would value Clarion at $850 million, a premium, according to Bloomberg, which cited sources familiar with the talks.

Baltimore-based Legg Mason, founded in 1899, had $696 billion under management as of July 31, 2015.

Clarion, founded in 1982 by Stephen Furnary and John Weisz, has about $38 billion in assets under management, and owns properties in several major U.S. markets including Boston and Palm Beach.

In New York, the firm owns the Printhouse Lofts at 139 North 10th Street in Williamsburg, the 70,000-square-foot office building at 636 Sixth Avenue, and others.

Last month, it bought a 70 percent stake in the 120,000-square-foot 86 Trinity Place in the Financial District, with plans to create 174 hotel rooms there.

In September, the firm paid $99 million along with partners Alchemy Properties and ABR Partners for the leasehold at the 25-story office building at 221 East 43rd Street in Midtown. [Bloomberg] – Ariel Stulberg

Source: Clarion in exclusive buyout talks with Legg Mason: report

(Credit: Jean Porter)

TRD Special Report: When the heiress Bunny Mellon died in 2014 at age 103, Sotheby’s sold her art collection – with pieces from Georges Braque and Mark Rothko – for a whopping $158.7 million. Her jewelry and furniture fetched another $59.3 million.

But when it came time to market the crown jewel of her real estate portfolio – a 2,000-acre, $70 million compound in Virginia – the executor of her estate tapped Washington Fine Properties, a Georgetown-based boutique firm and onetime Sotheby’s affiliate that cut ties with the auction house more than a decade ago.

The Mellon estate decision cast a shadow on the much-ballyhooed relationship between the auction house and real estate brokerages around the country that pay a pretty penny to license its name.

Both Sotheby’s and its main rival, Christie’s, have real estate ties – Christie’s via affiliated firms like Brown Harris Stevens in New York, and Sotheby’s through wholly-owned offices as well as affiliated brokerages. These affiliations are touted by property brokerage chiefs as an elite referral network that can generate buyer and seller leads and result in lucrative property sales.

“The same people who buy important art buy important real estate,” Hall Willkie, president of BHS, said in a promotional video on Christie’s website.

With political and economic instability on the rise worldwide, New York City’s relative stability is attracting growing investor interest. Prices in the city’s luxury residential market jumped 18.8 percent in 2014, the largest gain among so-called “world cities,” according to Knight Frank data. A growing pool of foreign money played a significant part in this appreciation, and local brokerages, anxious to increase their visibility with foreign buyers, are looking to strike partnerships across the country and abroad.

From left: Elliman’s Howard Lorber and Dottie Herman and Knight Frank’s Lord Andrew Hay

In September 2014, Douglas Elliman announced a so-called “strategic alliance” with Knight Frank Residential, a global property search consultancy headquartered in London. Three months later, the Corcoran Group followed suit, announcing a similar alliance with Monaco-based John Taylor. In early 2015, Town Residential inked a partnership with Miami-based Fortune International Group. And in November, townhouse brokerage Leslie J. Garfield & Co. said it was mulling a merger with London-based Beauchamp Estates.

“Relationships are resources,” said Wendy Maitland, Town’s president of sales.

It’s still unclear, however, if these relationships translate into what matters — commissions. Some critics go a step further, saying touting such alliances can be misleading to consumers, who may believe a brokerage’s global network or auction-house affiliation will help their properties sell faster, or for a higher price.

“Having been at Brown Harris Stevens for almost five years, I can say personally my business was not impacted by that in any way,” said a top broker who requested anonymity when speaking about her former firm’s ties with Christie’s. “It was nice to talk about; it’s certainly prestigious.”

Stuart Siegel, a former president of Sotheby’s International Realty in New York and now head of Engel & Völkers NYC, said though the 216-year-old Sotheby’s brand is “undeniably powerful globally, its influence over the real estate business is minimal.”

“It’s two separate businesses,” he added.

I. A package deal: The auction house model

The two big auction houses structure their alliances differently.

Sotheby’s founded Sotheby’s International Realty in 1976 as a service for clients, but sold the real estate division for $100 million in 2004 to Realogy Holdings, the parent company of firms such as the Corcoran Group and Citi Habitats.

In addition to acquiring the brokerage operation, Realogy entered a 100-year licensing agreement with Sotheby’s to open real estate franchises using the auction house name. Realogy pays Sotheby’s 9.5 percent of the net royalties it receives from franchisees – or a minimum of $2 million a year, according to Realogy’s most recent annual report. Today, Realogy owns 43 Sotheby’s offices, including one in New York City, and it franchises more than 780. The two segments sold $70 billion worth of real estate in 2014.

That licensing deal earned Sotheby’s $7.2 million in fees in 2014, according to the company’s most recent proxy statement, up from $6 million in 2013 and $5 million in 2012. But Kathryn Korte, president and CEO of Sotheby’s International Realty, reckons the deal makes sense. Under Realogy’s ownership over the past decade, the brokerage more than doubled its sales volume to $15 billion in 2014, she said.

Client referrals from the auction house put agents “face-to-face with a qualified audience,” she said, “because so many ultra-high net worth individuals have a personal passion for art.”

Many others, including BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink, believe that art and real estate are where all the big money goes to play.

But does purchasing fine art through your preferred auction house make you more likely to turn to it for property advice? That’s a tricky question.

Kathryn Korte (credit: Tobias Truvillon)

Korte declined to disclose the number of listings referred by the Sotheby’s auction house, but said there were “many,” including properties priced up to $95 million. She mentioned three successful referral deals, which led to sales of a $39.5 million Greenwich waterfront home, an $8 million Manhattan townhouse, and a $17 million estate in Sands Point, Long Island.

Anthony Paolone, an analyst at JPMorgan, believes the deal added up for Realogy.

“Realogy has done more with the Sotheby’s brand, in terms of building out a global real estate business, than Sotheby’s would have done on their own,” he said. “Real estate is Realogy’s core business and they’re very, very good at it.”

Unlike with Sotheby’s, Christie’s International Real Estate is a brokerage network that’s wholly-owned by the auction house. Local brokerages such as Brown Harris Stevens, which is the Christie’s affiliate in New York City, the Hamptons and Palm Beach pay a fee to be the exclusive affiliate in a specific market. The 138-firm network has combined annual sales between $100 billion and $125 billion.

Brokerages sign one- to three-year contracts with Christie’s to use its name but also to tap into a “true referral and marketing network,” BHS’ Willkie told The Real Deal. His firm can advertise in Christie’s brochures and even in its lobby at Rockefeller Center, which showcases properties being sold by Christie’s affiliates.

“It’s a marketing venue for us, and it’s a great one,” Willkie said. BHS can also earn money — a standard 35 percent of commission — by referring clients to another Christie’s affiliate.

These privileges come with a slew of fees, however.

Sources said BHS pays millions of dollars each year to tap into the Christie’s network, on top of listing-specific advertising costs.

“It’s worth it,” Willkie said. “It’s hard to always pinpoint, but it brings specific business.” He emphasized that Christie’s seal of approval can boost a property’s value, explaining it thus: “If I were going to sell you a diamond necklace, if I pull it out of my pocket or if I take you to Harry Winston and it’s in a velvet box, it commands a higher price. There is provenance.”

But it’s this attitude that critics of the auction house model say has the potential to hurt consumers.

“Marketing is saying it a nice way. It’s taking advantage of unsophisticated sellers,” said Compass CEO Robert Reffkin. “Their pitch book tells you, an unsophisticated seller, that more buyers will come through this network to buy your home.”

Reffkin said that getting actual business through an auction house or international brokerage partner was extremely rare.

“If Wall Street was selling a product to owners of an asset,” he asked, “saying that the product would get more demand from buyers, and less than 1 percent of the time it was actually true, what do you think the SEC and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would do?”

Realogy licenses out the Sotheby’s name to more than 700 brokerages across the country. But not all its affiliates embody the luxury lifestyle. A Sotheby’s-affiliated brokerage in New Hampshire, for example, is selling trailer homes. Licensing Sotheby’s name so widely “did alter the exclusivity of the brand,” Willkie said.

“Sotheby’s provides meaningful brand visibility,” said Engel & Volkers’ Siegel, “but it doesn’t translate into meaningful or definable percentage of sales.”

II. Friends of ours: Strategic alliances

Even those firms avoiding the auction house route are looking at partnerships that will help them court foreign buyers. That’s especially true in the luxury and super-luxury markets, where demand may be falling short of supply.

“If you’re selling a $20 million to $50 million property, you cannot just market to the domestic high-net worth market,” said David Friedman, president of Wealth-X, which tracks ultra-high-net-worth individuals. “To win business, brokerages have to show they won’t be constrained in marketing to the U.S., but will look at a global investment platform.”

This need for global attention on domestic listings was a key reason for the Elliman-Knight Frank tie-up. The firms share marketing costs, jointly promote certain properties and may swap leads.

“The global real estate buyer is starting to look in multiple markets,” said Richard Jordan, Elliman’s senior vice president of global markets, who in the past 12 months logged 700,000 miles and visited 37 cities worldwide in order to build up the Elliman-Knight Frank network. “It’s important to realize that and realize that a lot of our client base has assets all over the world. Why would we not want to take care of our clients no matter what market they’re looking at?”

Jed Garfield (credit: Erin Patrice O’Brien)

Even Jed Garfield, owner of Leslie J. Garfield & Co, who said 90 percent of his clients are still domestic, agreed that it’s important for a brokerage to be thought of as having global reach.

“Our clients on the sale side want to know that they’re reaching every possible potential purchaser,” he said. “Otherwise, it gives people a reason not to hire me.”

Garfield and Beauchamp will evenly split the commission on shared deals. As of November, Garfield was working on four New York deals with Beauchamp customers.

Siegel, however, challenged the notion that a strategic alliance or affiliation – let alone a partnership with Sotheby’s or Christie’s – makes a firm “international.”

“The optics are that you have access to the international market, and the companies use it to secure listings,” he said. “But their access to the market and their brand recognition and true referral business is diminished.”

Philip White, CEO of Sotheby’s International Realty Affiliates, disagreed. This year, Sotheby’s opened 14 franchises internationally, the most ever.

“We are very focused on creating a local brokerage business, but the real estate market has become very global,” White said. “For us to build the kind of business that we want to build, we have to be in the markets that are generating referrals across these international boundaries.” A proprietary system Sotheby’s rolled out in 2014, which includes translation tools, led to “thousands” of referrals, he added.

III: The bottom line

Standard fees for referral networks can range from 20 percent to 35 percent of the commission, sources told TRD.

But firms are tight-lipped about how much business they are getting. “It’s very nebulous,” said one brokerage head whose firm had a tryst with a European partner a decade ago.

From left: Town’s Wendy Maitland and Fortune’s Edgardo Defortuna

Maitland said the alliance between Town and Fortune – which includes shared marketing costs – resulted in more than $140 million in sales volume within the first six months. If the alliance contributes more than 5 percent to Town’s annual sales, she said she’d consider it “very successful.”

Diane Ramirez, CEO of Halstead Property, estimated that up to 15 percent of her firm’s business comes through its referral network, which includes U.K.-based Mayfair International Realty, Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, a membership-based network of around 500 brokerages worldwide, and Luxury Portfolio, the network’s luxury arm. She declined to disclose membership dues.

In the ultra-competitive residential market, agents are all too pleased to trumpet the relationships – whether or not they’ve actually paid off.

At least a dozen agents who joined Elliman over the past year singled out the firm’s alliance with Knight Frank – or Elliman’s new global reach – as a decisive factor. In November, Roger Erickson joining Elliman from Sotheby’s would give him “the resources of the leading residential agency in New York and London… and a brokerage network which extends both domestically and internationally.”

Elliman’s Jordan declined to disclose the volume of deals that came through the Knight Frank alliance, other than to say it was “significant,” with properties ranging from $500,000 to $25 million.

“Of course it’s a revenue model,” he said. “We would not continue to be investing if it wasn’t working.”

Like BHS and Christie’s, Stribling & Associates pays a fee to be an affiliate of global real estate firm Savills. (The two formed a partnership in 2010.)

“It’s not inexpensive, but it’s worth it,” said Kirk Henckels, a vice chairman at Stribling, who declined to disclose the actual amount. (Along with Stribling, Savills is affiliated with San Francisco-based residential brokerage McGuire Real Estate and The Agency in Los Angeles.)

From left: Nikki Field and the Lake Tahoe estate

Sotheby’s Nikki Field said she tapped the brokerage’s network when her client – former Tommy Hilfiger CEO Joel Horowitz — wanted to sell his 210-acre estate in Lake Tahoe. “I’m not licensed to sell in Nevada, so I couldn’t sell it,” she said of the property, which was first listed for $100 million in 2006. (It sold for $48 million in 2013.) “I brought the client to Sotheby’s locally. We found a buyer from Texas.”

Field said 48 percent of her business last year came from referrals outside New York, via the auction house or brokerage network.

“It’s a very lucrative additional income opportunity for residential real estate brokers if they have this connection to international sales,” she said. “It’s the reason I stay at Sotheby’s,” she added.

But even if the revenue stream for brokerage alliances seems ill-defined, agents and real estate executives said the relationships provide powerful branding.

“They are marvelous marketing tools,” said Kathy Braddock, co-managing director of William Raveis NYC and a former executive at Elliman. At the same time, she added, if the relationships made that much of a difference, firms with auction house business or a global alliance would have every listing.

“It’s important that everyone has international and national connections because the world is very small. But in the end, real estate is local,” said Braddock. “I will go to my grave saying that.”

Source: Do brokerage alliances matter?

From left: Wang Jianlin and a poster for “Jurassic World”

Dalian Wanda Group, one of China’s largest developers and owner of AMC Theaters, made another move into the Western media market.

The firm – headed by China’s richest man, Wang Jianlin – will buy a majority stake in Legendary Entertainment, the film studio behind such titles as “Jurassic World,” “The Dark Knight,” “Man of Steel,” and others.

The deal values the Burbank, CA-based company at between $3 billion and $4 billion, Reuters reported.

Wanda, which made about $38.8 billion in revenue in 2014, has bought a handful of Western real estate and media properties over the last few years.

As of June 2015, Wanda owned seven major real estate properties abroad, in London, Madrid, Los Angeles, Chicago and Sydney. It bought AMC Entertainment Holdings, which controls the second-largest theater chain in the U.S. in 2012 for $2.6 billion.

It also owns British yacht maker Sunseeker and Swiss sports marketing firm Infront Sports & media.

The firm doesn’t own any real estate properties in New York, and recently closed its only office here, at 1330 Sixth Avenue. [Reuters] – Ariel Stulberg

Correction: AMC Entertainment Holdings is the second-largest theater chain in the United States, not the largest. 

Source: Chinese real estate giant Dalian Wanda to acquire majority stake in Legendary Entertainment

From left: 10 West End Avenue and 123 Washington Street

After flirting with the $1 million mark, Manhattan’s median sale price shot up more than 17 percent during the fourth quarter to a record-setting $1.15 million, the highest price in 27 years, according to Douglas Elliman’s latest quarterly report.

The price surge was driven by new development closings, which accounted for nearly 19 percent of sales during the quarter, compared with around 10 percent over the past few years, said the report’s author, Jonathan Miller, of real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel. “You have more and more projects approaching completion,” he said. “We’re seeing closings accelerate.”

The median price wasn’t the only record high during the fourth quarter.

The average sale price rose by 12 percent to a record $1.9 million, and the average price per foot shot up more than 28 percent to a record $1,645.

In the luxury market, the median sales price increased by a stunning 25 percent to $6 million. The luxury threshold jumped 18.5 percent year-over-year to a record $4.2 million.

Overall, the number of sales during the fourth quarter jumped 9.4 percent year over year to 2,973. Inventory remained relatively stable – at 5,046 – and the number of days on market dropped 21.9 percent year-over-year to 82 days.

Condominium sales – also with condo prices – also outpaced co-ops. Condo sales rose 28.6 percent during the quarter to 1,434, with a median price of $1.7 million (up 21.3 percent). Co-op sales dropped 4 percent to 1,539, with a median price of $749,000 (up 2.6 percent).

In a separate report also released Tuesday, Halstead Property said condos accounted for 50 percent of sales during the fourth quarter, the highest percentage since early 2009.

“We’ve got great new developments and they’re starting to close,” said Halstead CEO Diane Ramirez. “We’ve got tight inventory, so the fact that we have new developments coming is opening up our market for more product.”

Compass, which also released a report, drilled down into various Manhattan neighborhoods and said Downtown’s median price hit a record $1.7 million, while the Upper West Side had a median price of $1.3 million.

In the Corcoran Group report, the brokerage said the number of contracts signed during the fourth quarter dropped 12 percent to 2,961 from 3,373 in 2014’s fourth quarter. Corcoran’s report also found the steepest price gains in large apartments, with the median price for a three-bedroom jumping 24 percent to $3.8 million from $3.1 million a year earlier.

Source: Manhattan’s median price of .15M breaks 27-year record

From left: the Waldorf-Astoria in Midtown and Jim Fetgatter

The flood of foreign cash into New York real estate will continue – and even grow – in 2016, according to a survey by the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate.

Sixty-four percent of the group’s members, who together hold about $2 trillion in global real estate, said they plan to increase their investments in the U.S. this year. About 31 percent said they plan to maintain their holdings.

Not one of the survey’s hundred respondents said he or she plans to reduce their foreign real estate investments in 2016, Bloomberg reported.

“This is a very strong response,” Jim Fetgatter, the group’s chief executive, told Bloomberg. Given slowdowns in China, Brazil and Europe, he said, “the U.S., at the moment, really is the safest place for them to go.”

Foreign buyers have spent a total of $87.4 billion on U.S. properties last year, a jump from just $5 billion in 2009, according to Real Capital Analytics.

Manhattan took in $23.5 billion of that, roughly 27 percent. London and Los Angeles were next on the list.

Investors favored U.S. multifamily and industrial properties. Retail was the third-most favored building class, with offices and hotels bringing up the rear. [Bloomberg] – Ariel Stulberg

Source: Even more foreign money coming to U.S. real estate in 2016

Stephen Hewett-Brown and 131 Broome Street on the Lower East Side

The elevator in which Stephen Hewett-Brown was crushed to death on New Year’s eve had a long history of problems, according to building residents.

The building, at 131 Broome Street on the Lower East Side, is co-owned by the city and the Archdiocese of New York’s Catholic Charities. The elevator there had three unresolved DOB violations in 2014, with seven more reported to the agency last year.

The 26-story story structure is part of a Section 8 housing complex adjacent to St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church Between Grand and Broome streets that also includes 410 Grand Street and 460 Grand Street. Those buildings logged eight DOB violations between them in 2015.

“These are death traps,” Daisy Paez, president of the tenant association at the three buildings, told the New York Post. She was herself trapped in the elevator 410 Grand Street last month.

The elevators went untouched during a $96 million renovation that the landlords undertook in 2012, tenants said.

“The archdiocese has connections, they had tens of millions of dollars to fix this place,” said Paez. “But they never replaced the elevators. Where did the money go?”

Hewett-Brown, a Bronx resident attending a party, was crushed at 131 Broome Street just before midnight. He reportedly pushed another person, building resident Erudi Sanchez, out of the way just before the elevator collapsed on him.

“It’s a terrible way to die — it gives me nightmares,” another tenant, Alice Orlando, told the Post. “I think about it every time I get in the elevator now.”

Another man, Eran Modan, was crushed in an elevator at the Rabsky Group’s Espoir luxury building at 156 Hope Street in Williamsburg back in October. [NYP] – Ariel Stulberg

Source: Elevator that crushed man is a “death trap”: residents

50 West 23rd Street in the Flatiron District (inset: Two Trees’ Jed Walentas)

Dropbox, the $10 billion cloud computing company, is moving across the Flatiron District to a much larger space at Two Trees Management’s 50 West 23rd Street.

The firm signed a five-year lease to take 31,000 square feet at the 13-story building, the entire fourth floor. The deal gives Dropbox the option to renew for an extra five years when the lease expires.

The asking rent at the building is $72 per square foot, Crain’s reported. The company is moving from a 12,000-square-foot space at the Hakimian Organization’s 33 West 18th Street.

Two Trees brought the 340,000-square-foot 50 West 23rd Street back in 2010 for $129.5 million. The firm made $25 million in renovations over the last three years, including upgrades to the lobby, a new heating and ventilation system and an 11,000-square-foot roof deck.

The online music platform Soundcloud also makes its home at the building. It took 43,700 square feet there in January, signing a five-year lease.

Two Trees’ Jed Walentas told Crain’s he’s in negotiations with another tenant who is looking to take the remaining 80,000 square feet of space at the building. [Crain’s] – Ariel Stulberg

Source: Dropbox takes 31K sf at Two Trees’ 50 West 23rd Street

Renderings of Vincent Callebaut’s ocean habitats.

Thinking way outside of the box and far into the future, Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut has proposed half-a-mile-tall “oceanscrapers” made of garbage and algae.

Callebaut sees environmentally harmful flotsam within the ocean as the building block for a new kind of structure. These so-called “oceanscrapers,” submerged 250-floor structures, would stretch about 3,000 feet beneath sea level and house 20,000 residents.

Best of all, they would be 3D-printed using algae and the discarded plastic that’s currently stewing in the Earth’s oceans.

The mixed-use aquatic developments would also contain offices, food gardens and laboratories, so residents wouldn’t need to set foot on dry land for anything.

All of this would be contained in a winding structure with a diameter of 1,640 feet and that features walls made out of aragonite, a crystallized calcium carbonate.

Granted, all of this is being proposed via a fictionalized manifesto written from the viewpoint of a future resident of one of these oceanscrapers from the year 2065. But Callebaut even goes into detail about some of the units’ finishes.

“The apartments’ partitions are made of chitin that is also synthesized,” he writes, explaining the material is a “molecule making up the shell of crustaceans such as lobsters.”

And for the flooring? “We took inspiration from the antibacterial denticles of the Galapagos shark’s skin, thus eliminating the need for toxic detergents.” [BuzzBuzzHome] – TRD

Source: Architect proposes ocean habitats made from garbage and algae

Liongate, the Bel-Air estate once home to singer Kenny Rogers, sold for $46.25 million.

The Los Angeles Times has rounded up the 10 most expensive single-family homes sold in the greater Los Angeles area from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, according to Propertyshark. Check them out after the jump.

$60 million — Malibu

Producer Marcy Carsey sold her Malibu beachfront estate to Interscope Geffen A&M Chairman Jimmy Iovine.

The 2.2-acre compound includes a 2,500-square-foot main house on a bluff, two guest houses, a cottage near the sand, a swimming pool and a tennis court.

$59.36 million — Holmby Hills

The Singleton House, a Holmby Hills estate estate built for Teledyne co-founder Henry Singleton, sold in April.

The 15,520-square-foot home opens to a grand entry with an oval foyer. Formal areas, a wood-paneled study, 10 bedrooms and 12.5 bathrooms are within the Southern Colonial-style house.

$50.5 million — Malibu

An oceanfront compound in Malibu’s Encinal Bluffs area sold in an off-market exchange involving a pair of blind trusts.

While details are scarce, tax records indicate show multiple structures including a four-bedroom main house and two guest cottages. A tennis court and a swimming pool are within grounds of about six acres.

$47.85 million — Bel-Air

Guess Jeans co-founder Maurice Marciano sold his 2.7-acre estate to hotel and casino magnate Steve Wynn for $47,851,500 in August in an off-market deal.

The 19,299-square-foot contemporary-style mansion has eight bedrooms and 13 bathrooms, according to tax records. A large motor court, tiered patios, large expanses of lawn and a swimming pool and spa sit within the hedged and gated grounds.

$46.25 million — Bel-Air

Liongate, the Bel-Air estate once home to singer Kenny Rogers, sold to philanthropists James and Eleanor Randall.

The mansion was rebuilt and expanded in 2013 and has 11 bedrooms and 15 bathrooms in nearly 24,000 square feet of interiors. Among amenities are three living rooms, a 12-seat theater and a master suite spanning 3,000 square feet. A glass elevator leads to a formal ballroom.

$44 million — Malibu

Investment banker and politician Jack Ryan sold a compound to a nondescript limited liability company in March in another off-market sale in Malibu.

The estate includes an unfinished Traditional-style main house and a pool house totaling 12 bedrooms and 12 bathrooms in about 13,000 square feet.

$38 million — Bel-Air

The Mediterranean-style Westside mansion on nearly two acres in Bel-Air was once owned by Georgia Frontiere, the late St. Louis Rams owner responsible for moving the football franchise from the Southland to St. Louis in 1995.

The two-story villa includes a home theater, a library, a bar, an art studio and a wine cellar. A total of 10 bedrooms and 15 bathrooms are within 17,700 square feet of living space.

$36 million — Beverly Hills

The onetime 90210 address of Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores came to market in September for $43.5 million and ultimately sold for $36 million — the most expensive sale of a publicly listed home in Beverly Hills in 2015, public records show.

The 14,422 square feet of living space features eight bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, inlaid marble and walnut floors, coffered ceilings, custom millwork and seven antique fireplaces..

$34.5 million — Bel-Air

In June, the estate of late radio and television personality Art Linkletter quietly changed hands in an off-market deal. Mortgage documents later revealed the buyer to be Canadian billionaire and Edmonton Oilers owner Daryl Katz.

The nearly five-acre property features views on the surrounding canyons, Century City and downtown L.A.

$32.67 million — Beverly Crest

Following on the heels of brother Maurice’s sale in Beverly Hills, Guess co-founder Armand Marciano sold his Beverly Crest-area estate.

The Mediterranean-style mansion has 10 bedrooms, 10 full bathrooms and 12 powder rooms/bathrooms in nearly 25,000 square feet of living space. Three floors of living, designed for large-scale entertaining, include a professional screening room, a wine cellar, a game room and an elevator. [LAT] — TRD

Source: The most expensive Los Angeles home sales of 2015

Jose Mourinho

From Luxury Listings NYC: If Jose Mourinho, a Portuguese soccer manager and former player, is having a bad year, you certainly wouldn’t know by his vacay destination. With a highly publicized recent firing from Chelsea F.C. as the team’s manager — reportedly the Premier League’s highest-paid manager ever — Mourinho’s getaway may be just what the doctor ordered. [more]

Source: Check out Jose Mourinho’s ,000-a-week Brazilian vacation villa

450 Park Avenue

450 Park Ave. is seeing an influx of leasing activity, as two tenants are relocating to the 33-story, 334,000-square-foot high-end office building, while one existing tenant is nearly doubling in size.

Leasing for 450 Park Ave. has seen a resurgence now that construction of the nearby ultra-luxury condo tower at 432 Park Ave. is coming to an end, according to Crain’s New York Business.

450 Park Ave. has long been considered a premium office building where tenants paid top dollar for space. But construction on the nearby 1,400-foot-tall condo tower at 432 Park Ave. scared prospective tenants away, fearing noise, disruption and unsightly construction site conditions.

But with work on 432 Park Ave. set to be finished by mid-2016 and construction already winding down, 450 Park Ave.’s luster has been restored.

Financial firm Junto Capital Management just signed a 10-year lease for 450 Park Ave.’s entire 25th floor, which is also about 10,000 square feet.Junto is moving from 510 Madison Ave. The asking rent for the space was $145 per square foot.

The Mexico City-headquartered law firm Chevez Ruiz Zamarripa also signed on for space, taking about 3,000 square feet on 450 Park Ave.’s 14th floor in a 10-year deal. The firm is moving to 450 Park Ave. from its previous space in the Seagram Building. Asking rent was $130 per square foot.

Meanwhile, existing tenant BDT Capital is relocating from a portion of 450 Park Ave.’s 23rd floor to the entire 22nd floor, a roughly 10,000-square-foot office that is almost double the size of the financial firm’s previous space. BDT signed a 10-year commitment to the new office. Asking rents were $140 per square foot. [Crain’s] – TRD

Source: 450 Park Ave. sees uptick in leasing activity

Michael Jackson and Neverland Ranch

From Luxury Listings NYC: Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch was a peculiar home for a peculiar man. The world-famous pop star who never grew up turned this gigantic property into a Peter Pan amusement park, complete with rides and a petting zoo. [more]

Source: Take a look inside Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch

A whole lot of windows at 5 Tudor City Place

In New York, replacing old windows in one’s apartment isn’t so fast or easy as it is in other parts of the country. Rather than selecting the windows and having a contractor install them, window replacement in the city can be bogged down by red tape and regulations.

In co-op and condominium buildings in the city, there are often specifications to follow and boards to please. In buildings designated as landmarks, a permit from the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission is needed.

Although these extra steps often result in a more protracted – and more expensive – project than homeowners might expect, they are designed to maintain the aesthetic integrity of the city’s streets, according to the New York Times.

Andre Neethling experienced firsthand the difference new windows can make. When he originally bought his one-bedroom co-op at 5 Tudor City Place in Manhattan 15 years ago, it didn’t take him long to discover a problem.

“It was extremely noisy,” Neethling told the Times, as well as dusty, because so much air was coming through the original casement windows, which gave the space character but also dated from about 1930.

When the building offered shareholders a pre-approved replacement option, he jumped at the opportunity and had Skyline Windows replace his windows in two phases — some in 2009 and the rest in November.

“I’m very pleased,” he said, adding that the new windows “cut down the noise by 99 percent,” and keep the dust out, while maintaining the look of the original window units.

For anyone thinking about replacing the windows in their apartments, “The first thing to look at is whose responsibility the windows are,” Stuart M. Saft, a partner of the law firm Holland & Knight and chairman of the Council of New York Cooperatives and Condominiums, told the Times.

“In some buildings, they’re the responsibility of the co-op or condominium; in others, they’re the responsibility of the apartment owner,” Saft said. “Then there’s a third category of buildings where it’s not clear who’s responsible, and it comes down to the history of what the building has done.”

For those seeking clarity, he advised reading the co-op’s proprietary lease or the condo’s bylaws. In cases where windows are the building’s responsibility, they are typically replaced only as part of a building-wide program, not at an individual’s request.

Regardless of who is legally responsible, Saft said that most boards are happy to let individual shareholders and unit owners replace their windows at their own expense, as long as all rules and standards are followed. [NYT] — TRD

Source: New apartment windows held up by red tape

Renderings of the Jardim at 525-531 West 27th Street (credit: Isay Weinfeld) (inset: Harlan Berger and Adam Hakim)

Portions of Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld’s Jardim condominium is now reaching street level as foundation work for the Chelsea development are now coming to an end.

The mid-block site at 525 West 27th St. is giving way to a set of two 11-story condo buildings encasing an elevated garden. Centaur Properties and Greyscale Development Group is responsible for the 95,000 square-foot complex. They purchased the site formerly occupied by the Pink Elephant nightclub in 2014 for $45 million.

The $62 million development is Weinfeld’s foray into New York’s design world. Building amenities include a private driveway, on-site parking, landscaped gardens, an indoor skylit swimming pool, fitness center, massage room, children’s playroom, tenants’ storage and a bicycle storage room. Completion is scheduled for sometime in 2017. [6sqft] — TRD

Source: Jardim Condominium rises to street level at High Line

A 20,000 square-foot mansion in Washington, D.C.’s Forest Hills neighborhood.

A brick-and-limestone mansion in Washington, D.C. has closed for $18 million, making it the district’s most expensive home sale of 2015, according to the listing agents and real estate records.

The 20,000-square-foot home in the Forest Hills neighborhood has seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms and five half baths, according to the Wall Street Journal. There is also an elevator and a temperature-controlled wine cellar.

The nearly one-acre property is comprised of three lots and includes formal and informal English gardens, a pool, a basketball court and fountains.

The seller was Samuel Lehrman, founder of retail development company Lehrco, according to public records. Mr. Lehrman’s family co-founded the Giant Food supermarket chain.

Listing agent Nancy Itteilag of Long & Foster Real Estate declined to identify the new owner, who paid in cash, but said he was an international buyer. The home was publicly listed for $22 million in April with co-listing agent Kathleen Coumou.

The previous record sale in D.C. was in April 2014 when the Williams-Addison house at 1645 31st St. NW sold for $16.1 million. [WSJ] — TRD

Source: DC mansion sells for record M

Apatow and Mann’s Malibu beach house.

From Luxury Listings NYC: Judd Apatow, the director who makes movies about adults who act like children, and his wife actress Leslie Mann have just listed their very grown-up Malibu beach house for $12 million. [more]

Source: Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann’s million Malibu beach house is no “Trainwreck”