The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Rudin Management nabs $100M loan for 80 Pine

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 02:34 PM PDT

Rudin Management has landed a $100 million financing deal for its office tower at 80 Pine Street. The Bank of America-issued loan package consolidated existing loans and added a new $62.6 million gap mortgage, according to public records. This additional money will fund the costs of an extensive renovation and repositioning program for the 60-year-old property, according to the family-owned developer. The 38-story Financial District skyscraper is undergoing a major makeover. A new ground-floor entrance

Feil Org leases 18K sf in Chelsea to expanding Petzel Gallery

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 02:03 PM PDT

The Petzel Gallery, a leader in Manhattan’s contemporary art scene, is moving seven blocks north to a larger location, under a deal signed with the Feil Organization. The gallery is moving from 456 West 18th Street to 520-530 West 25th Street, the New York Post reported. The move will give it 11,000 square feet of ground-floor space and 7,000 above for offices. There will be 85 feet of sidewalk space in the front for the

Surfside condo collapse prompts industry changes

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 01:30 PM PDT

Raysa Rodriguez, 59, described the moment she was awakened by the collapsing northeast portion of her Surfside condo building, home to more than 50 units. The tower “swayed like a sheet of paper,” Rodriguez said, according to a lawsuit filed on her behalf. It was 1:30 a.m. on June 24, and she fled. After making it to an outdoor stairwell, she was faced with the devastation that had been Champlain Towers South. “The beachside of

Attention Kmart shoppers: Last Manhattan store is closed

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 01:00 PM PDT

After close to 25 years in business, the Kmart located at Astor Place in Manhattan has closed its doors for the final time. Sunday marked the last day in business for Kmart at 770 Broadway. According to local blog EV Grieve, employees at the store were not warned of the closing until Friday. Signs marking a “Total Inventory Blowout” filled the store over its final weekend. The location opened in November 1996, when it was

Construction firm seeks $22M for unpaid work at 20 Times Square

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 12:30 PM PDT

Construction company CNY is trying to recover $21.6 million for unpaid work at Maefield Development’s multi-billion-dollar hotel and retail project known as 20 Times Square. The company, which was the construction manager for the $2.4 billion mixed-use project at 701 Seventh Avenue, filed a petition in New York County Supreme Court last week against an entity controlled by the Witkoff Group — one of the project’s original partners, which was bought out by Maefield in

Sciame, Royalton win round in suit against Normandy involving Netflix lease

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 12:06 PM PDT

A lawsuit filed against Normandy Real Estate Partners involving Netflix’s studio complex lease in Brooklyn can move forward, a judge has ruled. Royalton Capital’s Jin Lee and Frank Sciame of Sciame Construction are suing their former investment partner Normandy, alleging that it sold the partnership’s property at 333 and 339 Johnson Avenue in East Williamsburg to Steel Equities for $52.5 million without disclosing to Lee and Sciame that Netflix was interested in leasing the entire

“Forgotten borough” no more: Staten Island homes are pricier than ever

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 11:30 AM PDT

Homes in Staten Island continue to command record sums. After reaching an all-time high of $610,000 in May, the median monthly sales price in the borough remained above $600,000 for the second consecutive month in June — a 2.3 percent increase over June 2020, the previous record high, and a nearly 10 percent jump from the same month in 2019, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. Although the median sales price is

Brooklyn landlord scores rescue loan on apartment portfolio

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 11:09 AM PDT

A Brooklyn landlord who has been trying to avoid foreclosure on a large apartment portfolio just secured rescue financing on 10 of those properties in Williamsburg and Carroll Gardens. But the debt didn’t come cheap. Chaskiel Strulovitch scored a one-year, $16.5 million loan package to refinance 10 of 31 Brooklyn apartment buildings, according to a source familiar with the loan. New York-based Maguire Capital closed on the loan last week, but it had been in

Broker commissions could surge 16% this year

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 10:30 AM PDT

A red hot housing market means a big year for brokers. Commission revenue — the cut agents get for buying or selling homes — is likely to jump 16 percent in 2021, an analysis by the proptech Knock found and Bloomberg News reported. Brokers are making more in part because deals are getting more expensive. U.S. home prices surged 14 percent in April, smashing another record to hit a 30-year high, on the latest S&P

Bette Midler sells Carnegie Hill penthouse for $45M

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 10:07 AM PDT

After more than two decades, it’s time to close the curtains on Bette Midler’s Upper East Side penthouse. Midler and her husband, Martin von Haselberg, sold their triplex at 1125 Fifth Avenue for $45 million, property records show. John Burger of Brown Harris Stevens had the listing. The couple first listed the co-op for $50 million in September 2019. The unknown buyer purchased the property through a trust administered by the New York-based law firm

Vornado, SL Green CEOs pocket dividends on shares they don’t own

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 09:34 AM PDT

The city’s biggest commercial landlords may have taken pay cuts last year, but that doesn’t mean they brought home less bacon. While their companies shed staffers as commercial properties suffered through the pandemic, the chief executive officers of Vornado Realty Trust and SL Green Realty pulled in large payouts from dividends on shares they didn’t own, Crain’s reported. Vornado CEO Steven Roth agreed to cut his salary in half after letting more than a quarter

Long Island man indicted for deed theft of two Harlem brownstones

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 08:45 AM PDT

Twenty bucks for two brownstones — those are the deals that tipped off the state to a near-decade-long deed theft scheme by a Long Island conman with prior convictions. New York Attorney General Letitia James indicted Long Island’s Joseph Makhani last week for the theft of two Harlem brownstones, one of which Makhani stole from an elderly woman with mobility issues. Makhani obtained the properties — 107 West 118th Street and 135 West 131st Street

Summer lull hits Manhattan’s luxury market

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 08:01 AM PDT

Week after week, from February to the first week of July, more than 30 buyers signed contracts to purchase Manhattan homes asking more than $4 million. The 22-week streak reflected an unprecedented wave of buyer activity that smashed the prior record of six weeks during the hot spring market of 2015. But it’s over now. The record-setting run came to an end last week when only 28 buyers penned contracts for luxury homes, according to

Bay Area luxury market soars in Q2

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 07:00 AM PDT

San Mateo County’s median home price exceeded $2 million in the second quarter, the first county in the Bay Area to pass that milestone, as luxury home sales across the region gained, according to Compass reports. Sales of homes for $3 million and up in the Bay Area more than doubled from a year earlier, the report said. There were 1,785 sales above $3 million, a jump of 137 percent from the previous pre-pandemic high

Court rules Ashkenazy must pay share of $135M Marriott loan

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 06:33 AM PDT

An appellate court finally dropped the curtain on the legal drama over the New York Marriott East Side hotel. A judge ruled Thursday that Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp. must pay its share of a $135 million loan on the Marriott at 525 Lexington Avenue that the firm committed to as part of a joint venture with German guarantor Deka Immobilien Investment GmbH, Commercial Observer reported. The partnership, named Lexington Avenue Hotel LP, had initially snagged the

Editor’s note: A tragic wake-up call

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 06:00 AM PDT

Disasters in South Florida have traditionally been natural, not man-made. The region’s climate, long characterized by hurricanes, has transformed the way its housing is constructed. Hurricane Andrew, which destroyed more than 63,000 homes when it hit in 1992, brought about changes that made Florida’s building codes some of the strongest in the country and prevented an enormous amount of destruction when Hurricane Irma most recently ripped through in 2017. Following the collapse of a 12-story

Here’s what tenants pay in Angelo Gordon’s Long Island office portfolio

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 05:30 AM PDT

The following is a preview of one of the hundreds of data sets that will be available on TRD Pro — the one-stop real estate terminal that provides you with all the data and market information you need. Straddling the eastern border of Queens, Northwell Health’s two main hospital facilities — the Long Island Jewish Hospital and North Shore University Hospital — are major drivers for office demand in western Nassau country. A 16-building North

New Jersey industrial market hits record-low availability at 3.4%

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 05:00 AM PDT

New Jersey’s industrial market keeps getting hotter, and developers are rushing to build more warehouses to catch up with the demand. The availability rate in the second quarter sank by nearly a quarter from a year ago to a record low 3.4 percent, according to a Colliers International report. Leasing volume from April to June totaled 13.4 million square feet, including third-party logistics firm Omlog’s 607,000-square-foot lease at Bridge Industrial’s 1000 Rand Boulevard in Phillipsburg;

TRD’s July issue is live for subscribers!

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 04:30 AM PDT

The Real Deal’s July issue is live for digital subscribers and soon to hit doorsteps across the country. As recovery teams continue to comb through the rubble left behind by the condo collapse in Florida, questions proliferate about what went wrong, and how further tragedy can be prevented in the future. As editor-in-chief Stuart Elliott notes, the fallout could portend a broader reckoning for the real estate industry. This month’s cover story by Katherine Kallergis

Shadow group backs towers that would shade Botanic Garden

Posted: 12 Jul 2021 04:00 AM PDT

It’s just an abandoned spice factory — a beat-up, vandalized, forgotten plant in Crown Heights that hasn’t made a strand of saffron in 20 years. Next door, barbed-wire walls frame an empty square of gravel. A yellowing smokestack soars above the stout brick buildings nearby. But in recent months, the decrepit property has become the locus of an intense rezoning battle, stirring up long-festering concerns in Central Brooklyn over gentrification, development and affordable housing. And