The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Lightstone Group paid $56.6 million for the future site of a Lower East Side Moxy Hotel. The firm acquired 151-153 Bowery and 331-337 Broome Street in two separate transactions. The Bowery property, a three-story building that spans 22,300 square feet, was sold by Emmut Properties. It was on the market for $32 million. The five-story Broome Street building, meanwhile, was sold by Lau Management. The property was listed for $30 million. The deals closed yesterday, […]

Billionaire art collector David Mugrabi is facing a lawsuit from his estranged wife Libbie over an alleged scheme to cut out her ownership stake in a $72 million Upper East Side townhouse. The couple, which is currently in divorce proceedings, is fighting over 12 East 82nd Street, which they bought as a primary residence, court documents show. A limited liability company controlled by the Mugrabis bought the five-story townhouse for $15 million in 2013. They […]

Gary Barnett’s Extell Development has spent $62.5 million to purchase 572 Fifth Avenue in what appears to be part of the firm’s assemblage play in the Diamond District. The company bought the office building from Braha Industries, according to property records. It stands six stories tall and spans about 12,000 square feet. Extell and Braha did not respond to requests for comment. Barnett, who previously worked in the diamond industry, has been planning a secretive development […]

A year after Snøhetta’s first attempt at renovating Olayan America and Chelsfield’s office tower at 550 Madison Avenue ended in controversy and eventual landmarking, the architects are hoping their second attempt will be smoother. The firm’s initial plan would have replaced the original facade of rose granite with a glass curtain-wall and garnered fierce backlash from architects, preservationists and architecture buffs after its release in October 2017. The new proposal unveiled Tuesday features three stories […]

Luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers reeled in a record $7.14 billion in revenue for the year, but a recent drop in new-home orders, particularly in California, put a damper on earnings. In yet another sign of how soft the high-end market has become, the company said contracts dipped 13 percent to 1,715 during the fourth quarter. That represented $1.5 billion worth of new homes, a 15 percent decline from the prior year. Toll announced earnings Tuesday; […]

Oceanfront Bridgehampton property hits the market for $34M A 9,495-square-foot oceanfront home in Bridgehampton with floor-to-ceiling glass windows and a double-height living room has hit the market for $34 million, Curbed reported. The home sits on 1.7 acres of land. The main house has four ensuite bedrooms, hardwood floors and a master suite with a private water deck. There is a separate studio for guests, as well as enough room on the grounds to entertain with […]

Another one of Downtown Brooklyn’s new rental buildings is now up for sale. Pink Stone Capital is shopping around its 103-unit “Brooklyn Warehouse 180” apartment building – which includes amenities like a “reclaimed warehouse” lounge, “industrial” library, an urban farming roof deck, according to marketing materials. No asking price is listed for the 10-story building at 180 Nassau Street, though a source familiar with the property said pricing is aiming for north of $60 million. […]

Celebrity couple Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann have spent $14.5 million to acquire an 8,000-square-foot penthouse tied to the late actor William Holden. The 13-story building on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica was designed by architect A. Quincy Jones, and at one point, owned by Holden, the Los Angeles Times reported. The “Sunset Boulevard” actor also lived in one of the units until his death in 1981. The home boasts six bedrooms and eight bathrooms. […]

“The Closing” book features 100 candid interviews with industry heavyweights, who share the good, the bad and the ugly they faced while climbing to the top, and for some, falling from grace. 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 […]

There is so much venture capital money flowing into private real estate firms these days that you would be forgiven for turning money-colored green with envy. Take Opendoor, a tech company that allows for automated home buying and selling. The venture capitalists who’ve bet on the startup have valued it at $2 billion, based on a miniscule $10 million in annual revenue.  Or WeWork, which is now reportedly worth $45 billion. Compare that to the […]

Alan Bell is forging ahead with his two-phase Williamsbridge Gardens project in the Bronx. Bell filed plans with the Department of Buildings on Tuesday for an eight-story building with 83 units at 722 East 212th Street, the second part of Williamsbridge Gardens. This building will span about 64,000 square feet. The developer had filed plans in mid-November for the first half of the project: a slightly larger eight-story building on a different lot at the […]

Another high-rise apartment project is ready to go vertical on the South Bronx waterfront. Cheskel Schwimmer’s Williamsburg-based CGS Developers closed on a $75 million construction loan from S3 Capital Partners for the pair of rental towers spanning 237 units he’s developing at 210 East 135th Street, the lender told The Real Deal. “There has been lots of activity in the area from both private owners and large institutional developers,” S3 Capital co-founder and principal Joshua […]

Civic coders are emerging as the newest champion of New York City’s tenants. A group of hackers, dubbed the Housing Data Coalition, meet each month in Brooklyn to discuss possible data-driven projects to help tenants dealing with negligent landlords, the New York Times reported. Existing projects include an app called Heatseek, which allows tenants to record and report the temperature in their homes. The Displacement Alert Project maps out buildings at risk of displacement. Partially […]

Iris Cantor, the philanthropist and widow of Cantor Fitzgerald founder Bernie Cantor, is looking to make good on an Upper East Side townhouse she purchased for just over $18 million in the throes of the recession. Cantor listed the 20-foot limestone mansion at 11 East 74th Street for $48.5 million — 169 percent more than she paid in 2009. Originally built in 1869, the six-story house is located between Fifth and Madison avenues. According to […]

A construction executive was sentenced to 28 months in prison on Monday for his role in the “Buffalo Billion” bid-rigging scheme. Louis Ciminelli, former CEO of LPCiminelli, was the first to be sentenced in the scheme, in which he and others helped steer state contracts in Buffalo and Syracuse to LPCiminelli and Cor Development. During the hearing, Manhattan federal Judge Valerie Caproni called Ciminelli “deeply corrupt” and then scolded him for tilting his head in […]

Shaya Sonnenschein and Shaya Ackerman of Meridian Capital Group represented the owner, Marx Development Group. The loan was issued by Mack Real Estate Credit Strategies. #commercialrealestate #nycrealestate #trdny #trddealsheet #nyc #nycloans #trdloans A post shared by The Real Deal’s Deal Sheet (@trddeals) on Jun 20, 2018 at 10:17am PDT The Real Deal’s Deal Sheet is on Instagram! Our latest social media channel features snaps of retail and office leases, financing acquisitions and commercial and residential […]

A former Bear Stearns executive has just relisted his Greenwich Village mansion for $59.5 million, but he’s not lowering the price. Warren Spector, former co-president at Bear Stearns, has listed his 23-room townhouse at 11-13 West 10th Street, Curbed reported. The home was listed in February 2017 at the same price but was taken off the market in July 2018, according to StreetEasy. Spector told the Wall Street Journal last year that he would donate […]

It took nine months, but Compass has a new chief technology officer. The SoftBank-backed brokerage said Tuesday that it has tapped Joseph Sirosh — a machine-learning and artificial intelligence expert who’s worked at Microsoft and Amazon — to fill the key role. Sirosh starts today, reporting to Compass COO Maëlle Gavet. Sirosh will be the six-year-old firm’s second chief technologist, following the departure of Liming Zhao, who left to start his own company in March. […]

Retail landlords are finally lowering their prices. According to the Real Estate Board of New York’s fall retail report, retail rents have dropped and stabilized, leading to a higher volume of deals, the New York Post reported. In 15 of 17 major shopping corridors in Manhattan, ground floor asking rent declined an average 25 percent when compared to three years ago, according to the report. Bleecker Street between Seventh Avenue South and Hudson Street saw […]

Los Angeles, better known for its low-density, low-rise development, has been transforming in recent years with bigger and taller real estate projects. Megaprojects now in the works include the multibillion-dollar sports stadium in Inglewood; the the massive mixed-use Angels Landing in Downtown; the nearby expansion of the L.A. convention center; and the One Beverly and the Waldorf Astoria Residences, both plagued with delays and now both owned by developer Beny Alagem. The following 10 projects […]

For just the third time since World War II, the New York State Senate has a Democratic majority. But unlike the two previous times the party briefly took control — in 1965 and 2008 — this new power dynamic potentially poses a big threat to New York real estate due to the wave of overtly anti-industry rhetoric championed by many winning senators. The 2018 election cycle also saw the demise of several state Democrats with […]

Manhattan has triumphantly returned to the world of New York City’s largest projects. After getting shut out of October’s list, the borough took four of the top 10 spots on November’s. Fetner Properties’ development at 401 East 92nd Street on the Upper East Side landed at No. 1, while the Union Square Tech Training Center was in second place. Brooklyn had just one project on the list this time, while Queens had three, and the […]