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Donald Trump’s epic rants against immigrants, Muslims and the Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton have rattled even his GOP rivals, with Jeb Bush calling him “unhinged” and framing him as the “chaos candidate.” But Louise Sunshine, the godmother of new development marketing in New York and a former lobbyist for the developer, says he is anything but.

Trump is “the least chaotic person I know,” she said. “And the most determined person I know.”

Sunshine, who has known Trump for over four decades and shared an office with him at the beginning of his development career, praised the mogul’s strategic thinking and his ability to dominate the press — by any means necessary.

“He is the absolute guiding light in manipulating the media,” Sunshine told the Los Angeles Times. “And he always used to say bad publicity is better than no publicity at all.”

In a 2007 interview with The Real Deal, Sunshine described Trump thus: “He turned out to be the greatest teacher I ever had, and I probably turned out to be one of his greatest students.”

It appears that Sunshine, who sold her new development firm the Sunshine Group to NRT in 2002, shares Trump’s tendency for bombast. Her website describes her life as having been “one of almost epic proportions.” [LA Times] — Ariel Stulberg

Source: Donald Trump is “the most determined person I know”: Louise Sunshine

Westfield Group’s Oculus World Trade Center transport hub, 10 years in the making, is finally set to open in March.

The Santiago Calatrava-designed steeled-winged 365,000-square-foot facility at the PATH tran station will ultimately serve around 200,000 passengers and visitors, Politico reported, citing two sources with knowledge of the impending opening.

The project was originally projected to open in 2009, but was vastly delayed by political and bureaucratic wrangling, as well as structural problems at the site, such as leaks. Its cost — $4 billion — was more than twice what initially anticipated.

“It has not been easy for me,” Calatrava told the Wall Street Journal earlier this year. “I have been treated like a dog.”

Westfield will operate a $1.4 billion shopping center at the facility, with tenants to include Apple, Daniel Boulud, Eataly and others. The retail has been fully leased.

Retail spaces at the complex range from 800 to 8,000 square feet. The company says it expects to do $700 million to $1 billion in annual retail sales — between $2,000 to $3,000 per square foot. [Politico] – Ariel Stulberg

Source: Westfield’s Oculus at WTC to open in March: report

From the December issue: Kathy Sloane is one of New York’s perennial top agents. Sloane, who has been at Brown Harris Stevens since 1986, has brokered more than $1 billion in deals — $125 million this year alone. Her celebrity clients have included Robert Redford, Diane Sawyer and Martha Stewart. She’s also helped the Clintons buy two homes, one in Chappaqua and the other in Washington, D.C. Last year, Sloane found a buyer for the $70 million penthouse at the Sherry-Netherland, and this past October, she relisted the sprawling pad for $86 million. [more]

Source: The Closing: Kathy Sloane

Though new Manhattan developments were the heaviest hitters in terms of size this year, the outer boroughs more than held their own.

Half of the ten largest permit applications — by square footage — for new developments in the city were for projects in the outer boroughs. Emerging major real estate playgrounds, like Long Island City and the Bronx, topped the list, falling not too far behind the biggest development proposed this year: SL Green Realty’s One Vanderbilt in Midtown East. Property Markets Group and the Hakim Organization’s 40 Riverside Boulevard in Long Island City is slated to be the tallest tower in the city outside of Manhattan. The project will span more than 800,000 square feet. In the Bronx, Somerset Partners and Joseph Chetrit’s Chetrit Group are busy building up the waterfront, where they are ultimately planning 1.2 million square feet of development.

Here are the top permit applications filed in 2015, compiled from data from the Department of Buildings and PropertyShark:

1. One Vanderbilt, 1.7 million square feet 
Years after releasing details of its massive Midtown East tower, SL Green Realty finally filed plans for One Vanderbilt in September. At an anticipated 1.7 million square feet, the project was the largest permit application of the year. The 64-story tower will rise 1,501 feet near Grand Central Station and is expected to be the first building in Midtown East to dwarf the Chrysler Building. Kohn Pedersen Fox designed the tower, which the firm has billed as the “21st Century successor to Rockefeller Center.” The first and third floors of the tower will contain retail space, with the rest consisting of offices.

2. 40 Riverside Boulevard, 877,000 square feet
GID Development Group has been busy this year buying up portions of Riverside Center on the Upper West Side. The developer bought 400 West 61st Street from the Carlyle Group and Extell Development for $411 million in April, and in the next month, filed plans for a 37-story tower at the location. At the beginning of this month, GID snapped up three more parcels in the Riverside Center project. The planned 61st Street building will have 595 residential units, and 18,500 square feet of the total 877,000 will be dedicated to commercial tenants. The 478-foot-tall tower is being designed by architecture firm Goldstein, Hill and West.

3. 35 Hudson Yards,  876,645 square feet
Related Companies filed plans for 35 Hudson Yards in January. The 70-story mixed-use tower, designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, will feature six stories of office space, 217 hotel rooms and 135 condominiums. The tower will rise 1,009 feet tall and is expected to be completed in 2018 or 2019. This building, along with 15 Hudson Yards, will be the first residential condominiums to arrive in the massive West Side development.

4. Queens Park Plaza, 829,260 square feet
At 914 feet, Queens Park Plaza will soon be the city’s tallest building outside Manhattan. Developers Property Markets Group and the Hakim Organization bought the site at 29-37 41st Avenue in Long Island for $31 million in November 2014. A majority of the proposed tower’s 800 residential units will be dedicated to rentals and the top floors will consist of condos. The new tower will rise 60 stories and will incorporate the 88-year-old Manhattan Bank Building at its base.

5. 101 Lincoln Avenue, 784,176 square feet
Call it what you want, but the Mott Haven section of the Bronx is about to change dramatically. In September, Chetrit Group and Somerset Partners filed plans for two apartment towers in the South Bronx, an area that the developers have suggested renaming the Piano District as a homage to the neighborhood’s piano-making history. The suggestion has been met with some opposition. The larger of the two proposed towers, 101 Lincoln Avenue, will feature 826 apartments across 747,729 square feet of residential space, about 33,000 square feet of retail, 3,200 square feet for a community facility.

6. 820 Colgate Avenue, 771,556 square feet 
In July, Nelson Management Group filed plans to build two new 13-story residential towers to joins its other four buildings at Lafayette-Boynton Apartments in the Soundview neighborhood of the Bronx. The towers will each add 217 units to the housing complex. Nelson Management bought the housing complex in 2011 for $51.5 million.

7. 29-19 41st Avenue, 770,000 square feet
Adjacent to the slightly more impressive Queens Park Plaza, Property Markets Group is planning to build another tower. In May the developer filed plans for a 66-story tower at the site of the long-vacant Long Island City Bank. The 870-unit rental tower will rise next to the iconic Clock Tower, which was deemed a city landmark earlier this year.

8. 685 First Avenue, Manhattan, 770,000 square feet
In August, billionaire Sheldon Solow revealed plans for a 42-story mixed-use tower located next to his long-vacant three-acre development site on First Avenue. The plans include 550 residential units, as well as 10,000 square feet of commercial space and 56,000 square feet for manufacturing.

 9. 532 Neptune Avenue, 691,405 square feet 
A 40-story mixed-use will soon land in Coney Island. In January, Rubin Schron’s Cammeby’s International filed plans for a 544-unit tower that dedicate 513,850 square feet to residential space and another 162,220 square feet to commercial.

10. 147-30 Archer Avenue, 636,443 square feet
In May, BRP Companies came one step closer to making its long-rumored “The Crossing” a reality. The developer filed plans for a two-building project in Jamaica, Queens, that will include 580 residential units. The two buildings — which will rise to 14 and 26 stories — will have 523,000 square feet of residential space, more than 96,000 of commercial space and a 17,375-square-foot community facility.

Source: The top 10 biggest real estate projects of 2015

Hirschfeld Properties chief Elie Hirschfeld — who famously rented rent his Hamptons mansion to the Clintons — just bought himself another one.

The developer picked up 175 Dune Road in Westhampton Beach, paying about $14 million.

The oceanfront home is about 6,000 square feet with seven bedrooms, sitting on two acres of land. It features a heated gunite pool, the New York Post reported.

Linda Zelin of Corcoran represented the developer.

Hirschfeld is responsible for such New York landmarks as the Hotel Pennsylvania, the Grand Sutton and the Crowne Plaza Hotel.

He plans to continue living at 211 Lily Pond Lane, where Bill and Hillary Clinton stayed in 2011 and 2012, before a dispute over a security deposit drove them to summer elsewhere. In the years since, they’ve rented a different mansion, on Broadview Road in Amagansett.

Hirschfeld had put the Lily Pond Lane mansion on the market as recently as this August.

The developer plans to use the new house as an investment property. It’s currently on the market as a rental, charging $400,000 from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Victoria Reynolds of Norma Reynolds Sotheby’s International has that listing. [NYP] – Ariel Stulberg

Source: Elie Hirschfeld buys Westhampton Beach mansion for M

A Palo Alto startup backed by the likes of Greylock Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and former Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit is offering loans in exchange for equity stakes in the homes of would-be borrowers with bad credit.

The firm, Point Digital Finance, is offering cash loans to people who are restricted in their borrowing choices. The price? The borrower’s soul — or at least a piece of their house. The company only deals with borrowers who own at least 25 to 30 percent of their homes.

Point Digital doesn’t collect payments. It’s paid when borrowers sell or refinance their homes. If that doesn’t happen after 10 years though, the arrangement shifts, and the borrower merely owes a normal loan repayment, at 15 percent effective annual interest, Bloomberg reported.

If the borrower can’t pay, Point Digital seize his or her home and collects its due from the proceeds.

“If your home does well, we both do well,” CEO Eddie Lim explained to Bloomberg. “If your home doesn’t do that well, then this was one of the cheapest sources of financing that you could have obtained.”

If this reminds you of the kind of thing that caused the financial crisis, then you have a fair working understanding of what caused the financial crisis.

Sarah Edelman, director of housing policy at the Center for American Progress told Bloomberg that the loans were a risk for borrowers.

“While it may be appealing to get an upfront lump sum of cash, the risk here appears to be that a consumer could end up with a more expensive product with harsher repayment terms than they would with a more conventional loan,” she said. [Bloomberg] — Ariel Stulberg

Source: Low credit score? This startup wants a chunk of your house

From the December issue: It’s increasingly difficult to say anything about the Brooklyn real estate market without getting very trite, very fast. Industry players still use terms like “really taking off” and “up and coming” to describe price spikes that have motivated brokers (while stressing out renters) for years now. [more]

Source: The kings of King’s: These brokerages have the most Brooklyn rental exclusives

Robert Durst agreed to be extradited from Louisiana to Los Angeles, where he will face a first-degree murder trial in the death of Susan Berman.

The Durst family scion will be in California by Aug. 18, his lawyers said.

He’s being held in Louisiana on an unrelated gun possession charge. His lawyers have said he plans to plead guilty to that offense.

Durst is accused of killing Susan Berman, a friend and confidant, back in 2000. He’s also suspected of involvement in the death of his ex-wife, Kathleen McCormack, around the same time. Berman defended Durst at that time, and acted as his unofficial spokesperson in the press. Authorities believe Durst killed Berman to prevent her from speaking about McCormack’s disappearance.

Douglas Durst, head of the Durst Organization, is expected to be a witness in the trial.

McCormack’s family is pursuing a wrongful death civil case against him, seeking $100 million.

Durst, whose family controls one of the largest real estate empires in New York, was also acquitted for yet another murder, of a neighbor named Morris Black, despite having admitted to dismembering the man in Galveston, Texas.

Durst was the subject of the HBO docu-drama, “The Jinx.”

“Bob Durst didn’t kill Susan Berman and doesn’t know who did,” Durst’s lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, told the Times. “He is eager to go to trial and prove his innocence.” [AP] – Ariel Stulberg

Source: Robert Durst will face murder charge in Los Angeles

New details have emerged on Nathan Berman’s purchase of the leasehold at the former New York Stock Exchange building at 20 Broad Street in the Financial District, including the lenders and the final price: $185 million.

Nathan Berman’s rental conversion firm, Metro Loft, bought the leasehold to the 473,000-square-foot building with plans to remake it into a “white glove” luxury rental property containing about 500 apartments.

Deutsche Bank was the lender on the deal, with the Vanbarton Group providing preferred equity, the New York Post reported.

Vornado Realty Trust, the seller, operated the 27-story structure as an office building for serving the NYSE. But, as electronic stock trading has become the norm, it has become less necessary for firms to maintain offices close by.

Back in October, Vornado reported a price tag of $200 million, or $423 per square foot, for the leasehold at 20 Broad Street.

David Ash and Alexander Vial of Prince Realty Advisors represented both sides in the sale.

The ground lease is in effect until 2081, when the NYSE will have the right to take the building back. [NYP] – Ariel Stulberg

Source: Nathan Berman closes on 20 Broad ground lease for 5M

Vornado Realty Trust and Crown Acquisitions closed on $450 million in financing for their retail condominium at the St. Regis Hotel and an adjacent retail townhouse at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 55th Street in Midtown, Vornado announced Tuesday.

The loan matures in December 2020 and includes two one-year extension options, the real estate investment trust said. Vornado partnered with Stanley Chera’s Crown Acquisitions to buy the St. Regis retail condo at 2 East 55th Street and the adjacent townhouse at 697 Fifth Avenue for $700 million last year.

Vornado owns 74.3 percent of the joint venture that owns the properties, it confirmed, while Crown Acquisitions owns the remaining 25.7 percent.

The landlords signed luxury retailer Swatch Group to two 15-year leases earlier this year for all of the space at the properties, which span nearly 25,000 square feet in the heart of the vaunted Upper Fifth Avenue retail corridor.

Retail rents on Fifth Avenue, between 49th and 60th streets, hit $3,500 per square foot through the first half of this year – up 3.6 percent from a year earlier, according to Cushman & Wakefield, to remain the most expensive retail leasing market in the world.

Jeff Sutton’s Wharton Properties and General Growth Properties recently signed Italian luxury retailer Bulgari to a new 15-year deal at the Crown Building at 730 Fifth Avenue, located two blocks up from the St. Regis retail space.

The Bulgari deal set a new city record with rents in excess of $5,000 per square foot, as The Real Deal reported last month. – Rey Mashayekhi

Source: Vornado, Crown get 0M in financing for St. Regis retail

Gov. Andrew Cuomo led a crackdown on New York City landlords who illegally removed central heading systems at rent-regulated buildings – replacing them with individual meters that force tenants to pay for their own heat.

An ongoing investigation by the state’s Tenant Protection Unit has discovered the practice in roughly two dozen buildings located mostly in Bushwick and other parts of North Brooklyn, Cuomo said.

The violations mostly affected small walkup buildings containing fewer than 10 apartments and in total left around 145 tenants out in the cold, according to the New York Daily News.

Landlords who removed central heating systems at their buildings – and did so without the approval of the state’s Division of Housing and Community Renewal – were looking to force out rent stabilized tenants in gentrifying areas of the city, the governor noted.

“The MO is always the same – let the buildings rot, get the remaining tenants to leave so they can increase rent,” Cuomo said.

Housing officials subsequently noted the landlords of the violations and ordered them to not only restore the proper heating systems, but also reimburse tenants for costs incurred paying for their own heat and hot water.

Noncompliance with the state’s orders would result in “aggressive proactive enforcement steps,” Cuomo added. [NYDN] – Rey Mashayekhi

Source: Cuomo cracks down on landlords leaving tenants out in cold

Advertising firm GroupM will soon sign for 170,000 more square feet, three more floors, at Silverstein Properties’ 3 World Trade Center, adding to the 520,000 square feet it already leases there.

The deal is in “the very final stage,” and expected to become official on Jan. 1, the New York Post reported.

The firm’s combined space will make up a total of 28 percent of the 80-story, 2.8 million-square-foot, Richard Rogers-designed building. It will open in 2018.

In late 2014, the Post reported that asking rents at the building start in the high $70s.

GroupM has been considering the expansion since at least early last month, when rumors flowing of the firm taking as much as 300,000 square feet more. [NYP] – Ariel Stulberg

Source: GroupM adds 170K sf at 3 WTC

City and state officials are worried that Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov won’t honor Forest City Enterprises’ commitments when he buys the remaining stakes in the Brooklyn Nets and the Barclays Center in Atlantic Terminal.

Council members Laurie Cumbo, Assembly member Walter Mosley and State Senator Valmanette Montgomery were among the signers of a letter, which is aimed at pressuring the Empire State Development Corporation to oversee implementation of the deal, DNAinfo reported.

“We ask that any such sale be subject to a fair, open, and timely public review,” the letter stated. “We also request that if the sale is approved the new owners be legally committed to being responsive to the community with regards to the impact of arena related events,” including illegal parking, hygiene, lighting and noise.

Prokhorov’s Onexim Group, which currently owns 80 percent of the Nets and 45 percent of the Barclays Center, plans to buy the rest from partner Forest City.

Forest City is planning to convert to a real estate investment trust on Jan. 1. [DNAinfo] – Ariel Stulberg

Source: Lawmakers wary of Prokhorov’s Nets, Barclays Center deal

From the December issue: Winning exclusive sales agreements for stratospherically priced apartments is a blood sport in New York. But while it may not get the same level of attention, the competition for exclusive listings on the rental side is also fierce.

Landing an exclusive — the coveted agreement to represent a property owner — can mean the difference between thriving or diving in today’s tight rental market. [more]

Source: These brokerages have the most Manhattan rental exclusives

There are as many as 20 projects in development that will stand at least 900 feet tall. Of those, 14 will stand over 1,000 feet.

But Billionaires’ Row buildings like Extell Development’s One57, Macklowe Properties’ and CIM Group’s 432 Park Avenue, and JDS Development’s 111 West 57th Street simply wouldn’t have been possible in past eras, because of innovations in architecture.

“New York was asleep at the wheel the past 20, 30 years in terms of design and the skyline,” David Williams, principal of real estate branding firm Williams New York told the New York Times. “Now, I can’t think of a city in the world that has seen so much being built on a single boulevard. From coast to coast, it’s New York chutzpah.”

The boom was also enabled by the large-scale air rights sales, which have drawn scrutiny from activists and government officials. Carl Weisbrod defended the practice saying it “often leads to a more interesting streetscape and pedestrian experience, as well as an incredibly dynamic, iconic skyline that is the envy of the world.”

But recently, some of the buildings have struggled to sell units at the pace anticipated. One57 still has about a quarter of its units available, the Times reported.

But Gary Barnett, head of Extell, said it would all turn out well.

“Big as these buildings are, most of them do not have very many units. Maybe there’s a few hundred on the whole stretch,” he told the Times. “It might take a little longer for them to sell, but there is certainly demand for these buildings.”

One amusing quirk of selling the buildings involves their ad materials. While marketing brochures are heavy on photos of the beautiful views that future supertall residents will experience every day, they leave something important out: the other buildings.

No problem, said JDS Development’s Michael Stern.

“We’re not forecasters, so any building that’s not built yet wouldn’t be a factor for us,” he told the Times. “I actually really like 432 [Park Avenue]. It makes my building look less intimidating.” [NYT] – Ariel Stulberg

Source: Head in the clouds: Supertalls are reshaping the Manhattan skyline

What do Chuck Schumer, Jeff Flake, John Cornyn and Pete Sessions have in common?

This isn’t the beginning of a bad Capitol Hill joke. The four lawmakers all championed an extension of the controversial EB-5 visa program in Congress, and they all received major donations from the industry benefiting most from such an extension – real estate. 

The findings, based on data from campaign finance watchdog site OpenSecrets, illustrate the ever-expanding role of industry money in U.S. politics. Schumer, New York’s senior senator, received $1.09 million in campaign donations since 2011 from real estate interests. His fourth-largest individual donor was Fragomen, a firm that claims to be “the world’s leading immigration firm” and has donated $82,200 to Schumer’s campaign committee.

Fragomen has a prominent EB-5 practice, and on its website claims to be “at the forefront of any current or impending changes made to the legislation.” Schumer’s donor list also includes Related Companies and Silverstein Properties, two development firms that have raised serious cash through the EB-5 program.

On Tuesday, Congress renewed the EB-5 program, which gives foreigners green cards in exchange for their investments in job-creating U.S. projects. The program has been widely criticized for funneling cash to luxury real estate projects in prime urban neighborhoods, rather than in low-income areas.

In June, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D) introduced a reform bill that would have made it much harder for urban development projects to qualify and would have raised the minimum individual investment under the program. Developers like Related, which raised more than $600 million in EB-5 money for its Hudson Yards development, opposed the changes and recently ramped up their lobbying expenses, as The Real Deal reported. The reform did not win enough support, and EB-5 was extended without any changes.

The extension was cheered by EB-5 firms. “Our champions – Senators Cornyn, Flake and Schumer and Congressman Pete Sessions – refused to give up,” Jeff Campion of Pathways EB-5, a firm that manages several so-called regional centers that play matchmaker between investors and developers, wrote in a blog post Thursday. “Please thank them through an email or phone call because without them, there would be no extension,” he added.

These four “champions” all received significant donations from the real estate industry. Flake, a GOP senator from Arizona, has raised over $340,000 from the real estate industry, OpenSecrets data show. Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, has raised over $500,000. Rep. Pete Sessions, who represents a district in suburban Dallas, has raised only $50,000 from industry players, but they account for the second-largest share of his campaign donations.

These congressmen are in favor of reform, but the reforms they push for don’t address the real estate industry’s ability to use EB-5 funds for projects in prime urban locations like Midtown Manhattan and the Far West Side. On Thursday, senators Cornyn and Flake introduced a bill called the “EB-5 Integrity Act” of 2015 that calls for stricter oversight of regional centers and visa applicants, but the bill appears to have no provision to end the so-called gerrymandering of districts that allows developers to use EB-5 funds in areas like Midtown. In other words: developers would still be able to access EB-5 funds much like before.

Flake in October introduced another bill to reform the drawing of Targeted Employment Areas, or low-income districts where projects can qualify for EB-5 funding. But according to a blog post by immigration expert David North, the bill would “perpetuate the problem” of gerrymandering.

Grassley and Leahy, proponents of more far-reaching EB-5 reform who represent the predominantly rural states of Iowa and Vermont, raised far fewer funds from the industry since 2011 – $67,100 and $31,350 respectively. California’s democratic senior senator Dianne Feinstein, who blasted the EB-5 program, has raised a significant sum, $244,721, from real estate interests. But despite representing a state with several major urban centers, she has raised significantly fewer funds than the three senators — Schumer, Flake and Cornyn — who appear bent on allowing major developers continued access to the program.

Critics of current U.S. campaign finance laws have long worried that politicians could become biased towards the industries that bankroll their campaigns, tilting legislation in favor of well-connected corporations.

Grassley, the EB-5 reform proponent, seemed to make this point in a speech on the Senate floor Thursday. “This failure to heed calls for reform,” he said, according to the Des Moines Register, “proves that some would rather side with special interest groups, land developers and those with deep pockets.”

Source: EB-5 champions in Congress show strong financial ties to real estate industry

The second week of the December is one of the busiest of the real estate calendar.

Contract signings jump about 10 percent on average that week, with buyers and sellers looking to take advantage of price cuts and tax incentives associated with the end of the year, according to national survey by Realtor.com.

The holiday season in general — from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day — sees about 20 percent fewer deals at $1 million and higher, compared to the peak summer months of May and June, and listings spend about 35 percent more days on the market. But the following months are generally even worse, with volume falling an additional 10 to 20 percent below December’s numbers, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Buyers are driven by end-of-the-year price cuts. They also gain tax advantages. Buyers who finance their purchase will get benefits sooner from deductions of they close before January. And sellers who have suffered investment losses can lower their tax bills by logging gains from real estate sales the same year. [WSJ] – Ariel Stulberg

Source: December is the month for real estate deals

The sale of Stuyvesant Town to the Blackstone Group and Ivanhoe Cambridge closed on Friday, but not without some heavy drama behind the scenes.

As the closing of the deal approached, SL Green Realty threatened to file a lawsuit that would block the sale, or at least hold it up. The transaction, valued at over $5.3 billion, ended up going through as planned, but not without SL Green receiving $10 million dollars from CWCapital Asset Management, one of Stuy Town’s sellers, the New York Times reported.

The move stems from a conflict over SL Green’s One Vanderbilt in Midtown. That project has been repeatedly challenged by the real estate investor Andrew Penson, the landlord of Grand Central Terminal, stationed next door. CWCapital’s parent company, Fortress Investment Group, is one of Penson’s partners in that property.

Penson earlier this year filed a $1.1 billion lawsuit against the city and SL Green, alleging the city improperly sold SL Green air rights for the massive tower, thus rendering Penson’s own air rights for Grand Central all but worthless. Because Penson didn’t back off, SL Green threatened CWCapital at the eleventh hour of the biggest real estate deal in nearly a decade, the Times reported.

“Clearly, there’s no love lost between the two groups,” one executive involved in the deal told the Times. “SL Green’s threat was close enough to the closing that everyone was afraid. But it was obvious to all the parties that it had no merit. It was a nuisance and a distraction.”

The deal for Stuy-Town — heralded by many politicians and housing advocates — will preserve about half of the 11,000-unit complex as affordable for at least 20 years, with Blackstone receiving $225 million in benefits in return.

The Real Deal in October went behind the scenes to detail how the deal was struck between Blackstone real estate head Jonathan Gray, the city, Canadian pension fund Ivanhoe Cambridge and CWCapital. [NYT] – Ariel Stulberg

Source: SL Green given M to withdraw suit blocking Stuy Town deal: report

From Luxury Listings NYC: Charles Schwab’s Riverside Drive mansion  may have been a tad garish, but it was certainly one of a kind. [more]

Source: A look back at one of the most spectacular mansions NYC ever lost

A triangle with a 25.5-inch base and 27.5-inch sides in the West Village is NYC’s tiniest piece of real estate. It was born out of a bitter dispute between the city and a landlord. And in a recent New Yorker cartoon, the magazine looks back at the history of the site, while poking fun at modern attitudes toward public works projects. (more…)

Source: Cheeky cartoon looks at NYC’s tiniest piece of real estate

Silicon Valley has topped Forbes’ list of the most expensive zip codes in America for three years in a row. The area has some of the most expensive homes and wealthy residents in the country — including a recently listed $88 million mansion. Here is a closer look at the most expensive home in the pricey neighborhood. (more…)

Source: A look at Silicon Valley’s most expensive homes: VIDEO

From Luxury Listings NYC: The best virtual house tours of the week include a Woodstock farmhouse conversion, a look inside Stan Fischler’s Upper West Side home and one very nice shipping container. [more]

Source: Hockey, shipping containers and cottages: “At home” around the world this week

Yesterday, the New York Public Library broke ground on a $22 million renovation of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. Check out the renderings after the jump. (more…)

Source: NYPL breaks ground on M Harlem renovation project

A million dollars won’t go so far in Manhattan, so why not buy an entire town instead? The ghost town of Uptop, Colo., is up for sale for just $1 million – a pretty sweet deal for anyone fantasizing about staging their own saloon fight scene. (more…)

Source: Colorado ghost town asks just M

From Luxury Listings NYC: Oprah Winfrey just closed on this (slightly) absurd home in Mountain Village in Telluride for $13.75 million, after buying 60 acres of property nearby last year for $10.95 million. [more]

Source: Oprah has a new M palace in Telluride

George W. Bush may have won the election, but he owes little of his second-term victory to the help of New York’s residential real estate brokers.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, most real estate brokers contributed to Democratic Party candidates leading up to the November race. A look at the donations made during the 2004 election cycle, which also includes 2003, from Federal Elections Commission data posted at the Web site www.opensecrets.org, showed some big givers but not a lot of donations overall. Read the full story from the December 2004 issue here. 

Source: From the archives: Broker$ get political during election

Delancey Street Associates’ Essex Crossing development on the Lower East Side received a new, $79.5 million financing package from Wells Fargo to fund its Site 6 portion — taking the bank’s total funding of the ambitious mixed-use project to more than $200 million. (more…)

Source: Wells Fargo takes Essex Crossing funding to over 0M

It has not been a good year for New York City real estate attorneys. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office announced the indictment of Claudine King this week on grand larceny charges, with the former lawyer accused of stealing more than $500,000 from former clients.

The 38-year-old King, who ran a Midtown-based real estate law practice, allegedly stole more than half a million dollars from three former clients and from a potential buyer involved in the sale of one of her clients’ properties, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said in a statement.

Each of King’s alleged crimes “followed a similar pattern,” according to the DA’s office — with the attorney receiving money that she was supposed to hold in escrow on a client’s behalf and, rather than holding the cash, spending it on either business and personal expenses or to repay clients she had previous stolen from. (more…)

Source: Former real estate attorney indicted on grand larceny charges

The latest round between residential developers and the city’s landmarking process is taking place on the Lower East Side, where property owners have asked the community board to oppose a landmarks designation for a historic former bank building. (more…)

Source: LES building’s landmarking “would be devastating”: owners

Talk about your all-time bureaucratic blunders – the city’s Department of Buildings reportedly approved a Williamsburg residential development based on plans for a completely different address, leading to the construction of an unsafe building that residents were forced to vacate last month.

The DOB issued an emergency vacate order for the luxury rental building at 120 South 4th Street in Williamsburg – formerly owned by murdered landlord Menachem Stark — in November after a general contractor who signed a lease for a retail space on the ground floor noticed structural flaws at the property. (more…)

Source: DOB’s epic bureaucratic blunder led to discovery that Menachem Stark’s former building is “dangerous”

A&E Real Estate Holdings has cut a $201 million deal with the city to buy a Harlem housing complex that will keep nearly 1,000 affordable housing units stabilized in exchange for hefty tax breaks. (more…)

Source: A&E Real Estate Holdings buys Riverton housing complex for 1M

Bar, restaurant and entertainment establishment Punch Bowl Social is set to open its first New York City location at a 20,000-square-foot warehouse space in Bushwick, The Real Deal has learned. (more…)

Source: Punch Bowl Social opening first NYC location in Bushwick

Macy’s $400 million overhaul of its Herald Square store, the Hines-developed office tower overlooking Bryant Park and Two Trees Management’s shimmering rental building at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge are among the finalists nominated for the Urban Land Institute New York’s inaugural development awards. (more…)

Source: These big-ticket NYC development projects have been shortlisted for awards

The Real Estate Board of New York and the Partnership for New York City, two powerful business groups, are throwing their weight behind the de Blasio administration’s citywide zoning plan. The backing gives the proposal a much-needed boost after four borough boards recently rejected it.

The zoning proposal, which will go before a vote in City Council in 2016, has two components, dubbed Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning and Zoning for Equality and Affordability. (more…)

Source: De Blasio wins business groups’ support for zoning plan

Indoor cycling fitness startup Peloton is moving its headquarters to the top four floors of a Normandy Real Estate Partners-owned Chelsea office building, more than quadruple the size of its current space in the neighborhood. (more…)

Source: Cycling startup Peloton quadruples HQ space in Chelsea

Boston Properties and Rudin Management’s long-planned WeWork-anchored Dock 72 office building was the largest construction permit filed with the city in November. Another Brooklyn project, the four-building second phase of the city’s Livinia Commons development was second on the list. Gary Barnett-led Extell Development filed plans for two more Midtown residential buildings while Tzvi Lipsitz’s Affordable Housing Real Estate Corporation also filed two sets of plans, for two Brooklyn residential projects.

While the biggest projects were very big, only half of the projects this month crossed 100,000 square feet. Residential builds and storage facilities dominated. Brooklyn, with six projects, was by far the best-represented borough. (more…)

Source: Top 10 biggest real estate projects coming to NYC

The original developer of the New York Wheel claims his partners are trying to take him for a ride.

Meir Laufer, who chairs the wheel’s board of directors, says he’s being sidelined from his own project and discriminated against by the project’s other investors, who allegedly say his Hasidic image is bad for business. (more…)

Source: Wheel of misfortune: Original developer of New York Wheel says he’s been improperly shut out of project

Developer and architect Cary Tamarkin is planning a soft launch for his newest West Chelsea condo building, which could aim for a sellout around $150 million. (more…)

Source: Tamarkin prepares soft launch for West Chelsea project

One of the long-held truths in New York real estate is that the city is woefully under-retailed.

Last year, Barbara Byrne Denham, an economist at REIS, crunched the numbers on retail sales data from the 2007 national economic census. What she discovered were some striking disparities between the outer boroughs and the rest of the country.

Residents in the four outer boroughs, she found, spent less on retail purchases than the average American, who shells out $8,344 a year on everything from new shoes to the latest tech gadgets.

Source: Retail development rises to meet growing, unmet demand

Law firm Outten & Golden will move from glitzy Park Avenue to a new, less-expensive home at 685 Third Avenue. But who doesn’t like saving money? (more…)

Source: Outten & Golden takes 35K sf at 685 Third Avenue

In a reversal of sorts, buyers are knocking on the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ door, hoping to grab up pieces of its massive Brooklyn headquarters complex. Industry experts say the properties could go for a combined $1 billion. (more…)

Source: Jehovah’s Witnesses portfolio could fetch as much as B

Robert A.M. Stern and Sir Norman Foster may get all the glory, but SLCE Architects gets all the business.

The firm, which is a major player in Robert A.M. Stern’s limestone 220 Central Park and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s sleek 252 East 57th Street, has been the most prolific design shop for residential buildings in Manhattan over the past five years, according to a review of Department of Buildings data by The Real Deal. (more…)

Source: How SLCE became Manhattan’s most prolific design shop

The city’s Economic Development Corporation moved forward with its East 125th Street Development project, releasing a Request for Proposals the first East Harlem lot. (more…)

Source: City releases first RFP for “E125” East Harlem development

Before Kuafu Properties went on a $700 million-plus Manhattan spending spree, the Chinese development firm introduced itself last year with a routine press release.

The little-known U.S.-based company, which is headquartered in Times Square, announced plans with Siras Development to build a 47-story, mixed-use tower on the Far West Side topped off by a restaurant targeted at an international clientele, dubbed the “Shanghai Club.”

Source: From Flushing to flush: The rise of Kuafu

Though the mayor’s own chief investigator called for cutbacks to the much-maligned cluster housing program, it’s not going away. In fact, the housing program for the homeless will soon receive $200 million from the city. (more…)

Source: Hated cluster site housing program to receive 0M in funding

Neighborhoods change slowly, one building at a time.

Wholesome Foods, a high end grocery, signed a 15-year lease to take 2,700 square feet at 1306 Atlantic Avenue in Crown Heights.

The company will pay rent of $65 per square foot, a sharp increase over the $20 per square foot paid by the previous tenant, a dollar store. (more…)

Source: Wholesome Foods (no, not Whole Foods) to replace dollar store in Crown Heights

Does waking up 1,300 feet above certain death, hanging off the side of a cliff sound good to you? Then you’ll love Natura Vive’s “Skylodge Adventure Suites” near Cusco, Peru. (more…)

Source: Wake up on the side of a cliff at this Peruvian resort

From Luxury Listings NYC: Let’s face it, Europe is overflowing with historic estates that are yours for the taking if you have deep pockets and a love for restorations. So on the face of it there is nothing so unusual about Château de Castille, a castle in Southern France asking roughly $9.6 million. But inside this 14th-century estate, this is a modern surprise: murals by Picasso. [more]

Source: A French castle filled with Picasso murals is asking .6M

From Luxury Listings NYC: The nouveau riche are at it again – this time razing charming old mansions to make way for modern monstrosities. Tsk, tsk. [more]

Source: Across America, elegant historic houses become 8-figure tear downs

You thought the White House or 10 Downing Street were impressive? Well checkout the Bundeskanzleramt, where German Chancellor and Time Person of the Year Angela Merkel takes care of business. (more…)

Source: “Person of the Year” Angela Merkel isn’t exactly living large in the Bundeskanzleramt