Author: admin

Mark Foster Gage Architects have created what would be the most spectacular new supertower on 57th Street — or anywhere else in NYC for that matter. (more…)

Source: Architect creates what would be the most spectacular supertower on Billionaire’s Row

From the first showing to the final closing, every apartment sale has a story, and some of them are real jaw-droppers.

The broker and her clients who received an unexpectedly snooty greeting from a surprise squatter. The luxury co-op client who got indicted for fraud before the deal closed. The real estate attorney with a sideline in kidnapping. The tranquilized dog. (Don’t worry, it’ll all be clear below.) Read the full story from the December 2004 issue here.

Source: From the archives: Strange and true broker stories

Don’t expect a new Trump Tower in Saudi Arabia anytime soon: Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has publicly denounced Donald Trump for his call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. (more…)

Source: Saudi Prince Talal fires off against Trump

A Park City rental, often used by Justin Bieber, is hitting the auction block without a reserve. The property has been on the market in the past for $15.9 million. (more…)

Source: Inside Justin Bieber’s favorite ski chalet

With rents on the rise in several of America’s largest cities, it’s always helpful to know what your money can get you. (more…)

Source: Here’s what a one-bedroom apartment looks like in America’s most expensive rental markets

A construction crew working on the site of an upcoming condominium conversion at 212 Fifth Avenue unearthed swastika symbols on the mosaic tile floors, sources told The Real Deal.

The property, located at 26th Street near Madison Square Park, is being converted to high-end condominiums by a partnership between Madison Equities, Building and Land Technology and Thor Equities. A spokesperson for the project said they were not familiar with the origins of the symbols but had the tiles ripped out as soon as they were found.  (more…)

Source: Swastikas found beneath floors at 212 Fifth Avenue condo conversion: PHOTOS

Cornell University and partners revealed the first glimpse of the Ivy League institution’s brand-new technology campus on Roosevelt Island, providing an overview of the project and where it stands ahead of its planned opening in summer 2017. (more…)

Source: Cornell Tech’s Roosevelt Island project chugging along

The holiday season may be underway, but hold off on the trip to Macy’s. We’ve got the perfect present right here.

“The Closing” book features 100 candid interviews with the giants of the real estate industry, who share the lessons they learned and the challenges they overcame on their way to the top. The collection is drawn from nearly a decade of The Real Deal’s back-page interview, The Closing, one of the most popular features with readers since the magazine’s inception.

In no-holds-barred conversations, we learn about the tough times and the triumphs of luminaries like Charles Kushner, who spent his time in prison mentoring younger inmates; and Stephen Ross, who spent as much time as a school boy in the principal’s office as he does now in boardrooms.

The book is a must-read for anyone fascinated by these very human stories of the grit and determination it took to conquer the world of New York City real estate. It is available for purchase here, or can be downloaded through The Real Deal‘s app on iTunes and Google Play.

The book is also available on Amazon and Shopify.

Source: Stocking stuffer: TRD’s “The Closing” book now available

Source: Scorecard: How are investment sales doing in 2015?

C’est la vie.

It turns out French chef Joël Robuchon won’t be bringing his Parisian cuisine back to New York City — at least not at 250 Vesey Street. (more…)

Source: Sorry, French food lovers: Saks is taking Parisian chef’s space in Brookfield Place

The Real Deal, New York City’s first and largest real estate-focused news magazine, is seeking a Web Content Manager to join our team in Manhattan. (more…)

Source: Wanted at TRD: Web content manager

Bill de Blasio isn’t the most popular guy within the city’s real estate circles, but the mayor’s proposal requiring developers to include affordable housing units at market-rate developments may include a legislative “escape hatch” for developers.

The “mandatory inclusionary housing” policy is meeting opposition as it moves through the public review process, but should the City Council approve it, developers would have to make up to one-third of residential units at projects affordable — if those projects get a city zoning variance or allowances for more floor space. (more…)

Source: Developers could appeal city’s mandatory inclusionary housing

Despite their defeat over the summer, two Dumbo community groups – Save the View Now and the Brooklyn Heights Association – again filed suit against the developers of the Pierhouse, as well as Brooklyn Bridge Park and the Department of Buildings. (more…)

Source: Brooklyn Bridge Park groups won’t quit, file new Pierhouse suit

WeWork has a new enemy.

San Francisco-based co-working landlord Vault signed a 10-year lease for its first New York space, at 1000 Dean Street in Crown Heights. (more…)

Source: Co-working provider Vault to open first NYC location

You may not want to order the fish at the new Bond 45. Shelly Fireman’s eatery is moving to the Hotel Edison in Midtown and will encompass the former Sofia’s Restaurant, where hitman Luca Brasi was killed in “The Godfather.” (more…)

Source: New Bond 45 will absorb former “Godfather” restaurant

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.

This month, The Real Deal sat down with the power house broker, who once occupied a front row seat in New York’s literary scene, rubbed elbows with George Plimpton and Norman Mailer and stepped into politics as the first lady of Kentucky. Click here to read the full Closing interview and watch Sloane discuss her colorful business and personal life.

Source: The Closing with Kathy Sloane

The financing of 2 World Trade Center has apparently stalled, with New York State and the Port Authority now considering millions in subsidies for construction of the monumental project. (more…)

Source: Port Authority may subsidize Rupert Murdoch’s 2WTC lease

1.) Taconic Investment Partners, L+M Development Partners and BFC Partners closed on a deal to buy 242 Broome Street from the City of New York for $15.8 million. Construction is already underway on the 14-story, mixed-use building, and Taconic has secured a $95 million construction loan from Goldman Sachs for the project. Once complete, the SHoP Architects-designed building will include 55 condominiums, the Splitsville Lanes bowling alley and the Andy Warhol museum. The building will rise between Ludlow and Essex Streets, and is part of a larger plan to revitalize Essex Crossing with nearly two million square feet of new residential, commercial and community space.

2.) A six-story office building at 74 Broad Street in the Financial District sold for $14.3 million. The buyer is investor Daniel Ridloff, vice president of SDG Investment Fund. Financial brokerage Oscar Gruss & Son Inc. acquired the 21,200-square-foot building in 1978, according to property records. The property sits adjacent to the 32-story office tower at 2 Broadway.

3.) Sam Chang’s McSam Hotel Group sold a development site at 337 West 36th Street for $10 million to another Great Neck-based developer, Kozani Inc. In September 2014, Chang filed permit applications for a new 23-story, 89-key hotel to replace a low-rise industrial building, but the Department of Buildings rejected those plans last month. The three new owners have not submitted any new filings or revised plans for the project.

(Source: ACRIS data for closed sales between Nov. 30- Dec.6, and Reonomy data) 

Source: Here’s what the M-M NYC investment sales market looked like last week

It may be a comparatively unimpressive price tag, but a $7 million Park Slope townhouse has a major trick up its sleeve: It can grow more than four times its size. (more…)

Source: Here were November’s priciest new listings in BK, Queens

When Oct. 21, 2015 finally rolled around earlier this year, few could resist comparing how accurately the movie “Back to the Future” envisioned the world of today 30 years ago. In the same spirit, The Real Deal takes a look back at predictions New York magazine made a decade ago about the future of New York City real estate. (more…)

Source: NYC in 2016 — as seen from 2006

Morgan Stanley is significantly expanding its space at Paramount Group’s 1633 Broadway in Midtown, leasing five full floors for a total of 261,000 square feet.

The firm signed a 15-year lease at an asking rent in the low-to-mid-$70s per square foot. The financial services giant is expanding from its current 60,000-square-foot space at the building, with plans to move in on May 7, 2016. (more…)

Source: Morgan Stanley quadruples space at Paramount Plaza

New York’s biggest real estate law firms are beginning to target the technology sector, with their top legal beagles courting tech firms and catering to an industry with ever-growing clout in the city’s office market.

Weil Gotshal & Manges is among the law firms tapping into how technology is changing the way property owners do business. It represented clients in four of North America’s five largest industrial real estate transactions in the past two years – with J. Philip Rosen, co-head of the firm’s real estate law practice, wising up on warehouse owners who lease space to Internet retail giants like Amazon. (more…)

Source: Real estate law firms log in to the tech world

From Luxury Listings NYC: A round up of all the deals and steals that have happened this week involving celebs and their homes. [more]

Source: It’s a wrap: this week’s celebrity home swaps

One of NYC’s most attractive Art Deco lobbies is set to open for the first time since the 1970s. (more…)

Source: One of the city’s finest Art Deco lobbies to reopen after decades

For history buffs and NYC fanatics this is about as cool as it gets. This highly detailed map gives a birds-eye view of Manhattan and greater New York. And while it isn’t 100 percent accurate, it does give an amazing view of what the city looked like before modern skyscrapers dominated the skyline. (more…)

Source: Check out this incredibly detailed illustration of turn-of-the-century Manhattan

Always be closing. So goes the famous refrain in “Glengarry Glenn Ross.” But to what end will some go to close? At Herald Towers, apparently, they’ll go to sex. Right to sex. On the front page of the 692-unit development’s Web site. Read the full story from the December 2005 issue here.

Source: From the archives: Moving units through sexual innuendo

From Luxury Listings NYC: America’s fascination with spy thrillers has certainly paid off for best-selling author Ken Follett. The writer who has penned a total of 29 books in the last 35 years — a combo of thrillers and historic novels — (some written in this actual lush estate), has just put his “thrilling” Caribbean estate up for sale for $25 million. [more]

Source: Take a peek at bestselling author Ken Follett’s “thrilling” Caribbean estate

Dumbo-based Alloy Development is attempt to halt a city plan to seize some of its land in Gowanus in order to build sewage tanks on the site, offering to donate part of the property for use as a green space.

The developer had planned to build a commercial building on the land, at 234 Butler Street and 242 Nevins Street.

The vacant 52,000-square-foot site at 234 Butler, where Alloy holds a 99-year ground lease, has 104,000 square feet of buildable space, according to Massey Knakal. (more…)

Source: Alloy offers green space as eminent domain alternative

CalPERS, a California pension fund, is negotiating a $1.9 billion contract to pick up a Midtown office tower at 787 Seventh Avenue, one of two properties being shopped by AXA Financial. As The Real Deal reported Thursday, Scott Rechler’s RXR Realty is close to a deal for the other tower, at 1285 Sixth Avenue, for $1.7 billion.

The 51-story, 1.7 billion-square-foot office property at 1285 Sixth Avenue, between West 51st and 52nd streets, is known as the AXA Equitable Center and is almost fully occupied. It was constructed in 1985. (more…)

Source: CalPERS to sign .9B contract for AXA’s 787 Seventh

An explosion last month at 4206 13th Avenue in Borough Park was caused by a recently-evicted resident who, out for revenge, poured gasoline on a stairway and ignited it, FDNY officials said.

Francisca Figueroa, owner of the Franchezka Unisex hair salon in Park Slope, was ejected from her apartment at the three-story building after a dispute with the landlord, Terry Sussman.

The resulting explosion killed Figueroa, as well as tenant Ligia Puello, who lived in the third floor, and injured 12 others. (more…)

Source: Borough Park explosion ruled arson

From the December issue: History is full of great rivalries, from Nixon and Kennedy to Ali and Frazier to the Yankees and the Red Sox. In New York City real estate, that rivalry is no doubt between new construction and prewar housing.

While co-ops comprise the vast majority of New York City apartments, the segment of the market priced between $3 million and $5 million is heavily influenced by the push and pull between old and new.

On the new development side, an influx of new condos has boosted inventory. But rather than gobbling up those apartments at lightening speed — like their counterparts in the $1-million-to-$3-million range — buyers in this segment are taking a bit longer to sign on the dotted line. [more]

Source: Older properties struggle in M-to-M resi market

A new Dream Hotel is designed to be the “quiet and elegant” buffer between the Garment district and the nightmarish bustle of Times Square. (more…)

Source: A dream no more: Renderings revealed for Dream Hotel Times Square

What a difference seven months makes.

Prices at China Cinda and Aby Rosen’s luxury condominium at 100 East 53rd Street are up 16 percent on a per-square-foot basis since the building’s first condo plans were filed with the Attorney General’s office. (more…)

Source: Prices heat up at China Cinda, RFR’s 100 East 53rd

From the December issue: In his decades-long tenure, Tom McConnell has never seen this many hotel rooms spring up in NYC. Over a five-year period, the city has seen a 30 to 35 percent increase in supply, said the head of Cushman & Wakefield’s Global Hospitality group. The city could have 140,000 hotel rooms in the next few years — up from 93,254 rooms in 2009. Part of that boom is being driven by the growth in the outer boroughs. Travelers are filling those rooms voraciously. [more]

Source: By the numbers: NYC hotel supply balloons

The latest batch of reports found that home sales are surging in Northern Manhattan and East Brooklyn, and more than 5,000 new residential units are in the pipeline for Lower Manhattan. (more…)

Source: The week in real estate market reports

Bernhardt Furniture, one of the largest family-owned furniture companies in the U.S., is moving its offices and showroom to NoMad, taking 20,000 square feet at 136 Madison Avenue.

The North Carolina-based firm signed a 10-year lease, with plans to occupy the entire third floor of the of the 17-floor, 150,000-square-foot building.

Asking rent at the space was $55 per square foot, according to CoStar.  (more…)

Source: Bernhardt Furniture takes space at 136 Madison Avenue

Real estate players watched closely as a federal jury found former state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver guilty on seven corruption charges this week. And as the trial shined a light on the role real estate donors play in the halls of Albany, the industry has been cool to donate to the disgraced politician’s successor.

Speaker Carl Heastie, first elected to the Assembly in 2000, saw his political war chest grow after his colleagues selected him in February to be one of the “three men in a room” who wield power in the state capital. But only a sliver of the more than $350,000 he received in contributions during the first half of the year came from the real estate industry, according to a review of campaign finance records by The Real Deal. (more…)

Source: When it comes to real estate ties, Heastie ain’t Slick Shelly

The Bauhouse Group is moving forward with 3 Sutton Place, despite not yet having secured additional financing for the project. (more…)

Source: Bauhouse receives demo permits for 3 Sutton Place

Juan Pablo Molyneux designs interiors for a living, but he apparently knows something about buy-and-hold investing too. (more…)

Source: Highgate Hotels founder buys UES townhouse for .5M

A pair of artists are telling developers and their alleged “hipster-mite” minions how they feel about recent efforts to redevelop and rebrand parts of the Bronx. (more…)

Source: “Hipster-mites” and “Evil crops developer” are the villains in West Bronx gentrification mural

Current reader favorites:
1. Manhattan’s priciest new developments by total sellout
2. “25th worst” NYC landlord says Public Advocate Tish James didn’t do her research
3. City orders tenants to vacate Williamsburg rental built by Menachem Stark
4. Stanley Wasserman in contract for $300M-plus UES portfolio
5. Capstone exec buys Lenox Hill co-op for $12M

Source: Most popular stories on The Real Deal

Residential listings database Nestio just raised $8 million in a Series A fundraising round, CEO Caren Maio told The Real Deal. Trinity Ventures led the round, bringing the total investment in Nestio to $11.85 million at a time when real estate technology continues to attract serious investor interest. (more…)

Source: Nestio raises M in Series A

From the South Florida Market Report: High room rates expected to continue for the forseeable future are fueling a hotel redevelopment boom in the Florida Keys.

“The dynamic for investment at this point is very, very good,” said hotelier Jim Rhyne, who is in the process of renovating and expanding his Coconut Cay Resort & Marina in Marathon.

According to projections, by the end of next year, more than a dozen Keys resorts will have either relaunched after a major renovation or opened for the first time since the start of 2014. These properties will account for about 1,600 rooms. [more]

Source: Florida Keys getting 1,600 new hotel rooms

1. “25th worst” NYC landlord says Public Advocate Tish James didn’t do her research
2. Toll Brothers sell two starchitect-designed penthouses
3. “Passive” Cornell Tech campus to aggressively cut energy costs

Like The Real Deal on Facebook for breaking industry stories, links to quirkier pieces and lively conversation about important properties in New York and around the world. [TRD‘s Facebook Page]

Source: What’s hot on TRD Social right now

From Luxury Listings NYC: It looks like she’s finally managed to cross Delancey.

Amy Irving, the star of that 1988 film, “Crossing Delancey,” and ex-wife of Steven Spielberg, bought an apartment at 75 Central Park West for nearly $9 million, according to city documents. The seller was Fiona Kirk, a journalist who has covered health and wellness for magazines like O and Women’s Health, and her husband John Kirk. [more]

Source: Actress Amy Irving buys 75 CPW pad for M

It may not be a former Playboy Club, but a Lenox Hill co-op managed to capture the attention of Capstone Equities principal Daniel Ghadamian. (more…)

Source: Capstone exec buys Lenox Hill co-op for M

AvalonBay Communities filed plans Monday for its new 33-story, mixed-use residential tower at the site of the former American Bible Society headquarters in Lincoln Square.

The building will hold 160 apartments – both rental and condominium units – across more than 236,000 square feet. There will also be 34,000 square feet of retail space on the project’s lower levels, according to a permit application filed with the city’s Department of Buildings. (more…)

Source: AvalonBay files plans for 33-story Lincoln Square tower

From the South Florida Market Report: Palm Beach County’s residential real estate sector is heating up, thanks in part to banks’ willingness to issue loans again after a reduction in the number of distressed properties in the area.

The Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches reported that single-family homes were selling faster and at higher prices in this year’s second quarter compared with the same period in 2014. [more]

Source: Palm Beach’s resi heat wave

The Public Advocate’s office has been criticized for what some have deemed a lackluster fact-checking effort before publishing its annual “worst landlords of NYC” list earlier this week. This probably won’t help.

One of the landlords who appeared on the list — designed to shame landlords into making repairs — says his building is under renovation and he doesn’t have any unhappy tenants … because there aren’t any. (more…)

Source: “25th worst” NYC landlord says Public Advocate Tish James didn’t do her research