The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Firms file plans for hundreds of homes ahead of Gowanus rezoning

Posted: 08 Nov 2021 03:00 PM PST

Domain Companies and the Vorea Group literally can’t wait for Gowanus to be rezoned. Vorea filed plans last week for two projects in the neighborhood, both of which will require the passage of the Gowanus rezoning. One, at 404 Carroll Street, would feature 360 apartments and ground-floor retail space. The other, at 540 DeGraw Street, would have 268 apartments, according to Department of Buildings filings. The city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program would require that 20

Suzy Welch lists Fifth Ave co-op for $25M, has incentive to sell

Posted: 08 Nov 2021 02:15 PM PST

After securing an Upper East Side mansion on East 81st Street, Suzy Welch is ready to say goodbye to a Fifth Avenue co-op she’s had for the past three years. Welch is listing the home at 834 Fifth Avenue for $25 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. The seventh-floor duplex includes about 9,000 square feet and more than 90 feet of Central Park frontage. The apartment features 10 windows that look out on the

Douglas Elliman to go public in spinoff from Vector Group

Posted: 08 Nov 2021 02:09 PM PST

UPDATED Nov. 8, 2021, 6:30 p.m.: Douglas Elliman is going public. The brokerage plans to spin off from Vector Group, the conglomerate that also owns tobacco company Liggett Group and real estate investment firm New Valley LLC, among other holdings, according to an SEC filing Monday. If Vector’s board approves the move, Elliman will become a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker DOUG. Vector shareholders will receive one share

Led by $67M deal at Naftali’s Bellemont, buyers flock to pricey UES condos

Posted: 08 Nov 2021 01:45 PM PST

If pricey condo sales are any indication, the Upper East Side is back. The affluent uptown neighborhood dominated Manhattan’s luxury market last week, according to Olshan Realty’s report tracking contract signings for homes asking $4 million and up. For Donna Olshan, author of the report, the results are a resounding vote of approval for a neighborhood that “was never cool.” “I’m like, ‘Wow, keep it coming,’ because we haven’t been cool in a long time,”

Guv hopeful Letitia James endorses “good cause” as Hochul punts

Posted: 08 Nov 2021 01:21 PM PST

Add Attorney General Letitia James to the list of good cause eviction advocates and consider Gov. Kathy Hochul’s position pending. James, who committed to a run for governor last week, championed the proposed policy in a speech to members of the strongly progressive Working Families Party Saturday. The bill, which has stalled in the Senate judiciary committee, would prohibit evictions under certain circumstances. Tenants facing rent hikes of more than 3 percent or 1.5 percent

City Council poised to pass “body shop” bill

Posted: 08 Nov 2021 12:30 PM PST

The average New Yorker has no idea what a labor broker is. But construction workers’ unions do. Labor brokers supply workers — some just out of prison — to nonunion contractors who have eroded organized labor’s market share in the past two decades. On Wednesday, the City Council will make life a little tougher for these brokers by requiring them to obtain a license from the city. To get that license and renew it every

Plan C: Monmouth finds buyer after Zell, Sternlicht offers fall through

Posted: 08 Nov 2021 12:15 PM PST

Monmouth Real Estate, the family-run firm whose 120 warehouses sparked a bruising bidding war between swashbuckling investors Sam Zell and Barry Sterlicht, opted for Plan C. Monmouth, based in Holmdel, New Jersey, said after the market closed on Thursday that it’s being sold for $4 billion to Industrial Logistics Properties Trust, a Newton, Massachusetts company whose 294 properties cover 36.5 million leasable square feet. The all-cash deal works out to $21 a share, 11.5 percent

$5M combined condo was Brooklyn’s priciest contract last week

Posted: 08 Nov 2021 11:02 AM PST

When you’re looking to seal a big deal, two units can be better than one. A combined condominium in Brooklyn Heights was the borough’s most expensive listing to go into contract last week, according to Compass’ weekly report. The units at One Brooklyn Bridge Park, which span a total 3,310 square feet, had a last asking price of $5.35 million, or $1,616 per square foot. The condo has four bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms

In the works for 20 years, San Francisco’s Fantasy Islands enter the spotlight

Posted: 08 Nov 2021 09:36 AM PST

Treasure Island has been a lot of things in the 85 years since its birth out of the mud dredged from the San Francisco Bay for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. Flying boats operated by Pan American used its cove as a launching pad for trans-Pacific routes. As a military base from World War II through the first Gulf War, it housed a school where soldiers and sailors learned to respond to nuclear attacks.

Despite no mass-eviction event, filings are on the rise

Posted: 08 Nov 2021 08:40 AM PST

The mass-eviction event many feared would follow the federal moratorium’s expiration in August didn’t come to pass, but tenants across the U.S. are facing a steady rise in filings. Evictions are beginning to accelerate across the country in a slow-moving crisis, The New York Times reports. Housing experts and advocates told the outlet they are largely concerned that amid gaps in tenant resources and eviction data, it’s unclear where the trend is headed. The Eviction

Nextdoor to debut on stock market in SPAC deal

Posted: 08 Nov 2021 07:23 AM PST

Nextdoor’s stock-market debut has arrived, as the company is set to begin trading under the ticker KIND on Monday. The local social networking app for neighborhoods recently announced its plans to go public through a special acquisition company backed by Khosla Ventures. The company made its stock market debut on Monday, according to the Wall Street Journal. Khosla Ventures has valued Nextdoor at $4.3 billion, according to the Journal. The companies’ merger was expected to

Weill Cornell planning campus on Upper East Side

Posted: 08 Nov 2021 06:34 AM PST

Weill Cornell Medical College filed plans for a 221-unit building on the Upper East Side almost three years after buying the development site from a local church. The plans filed last week detail a 128,000-square-foot building at 1393 York Avenue, only a few blocks away from the school’s 1300 York Avenue campus, PincusCo first reported. The construction job is anticipated to cost around $118 million, according to PincusCo. When completed, the 202-foot-tall building standing 17

“Brace yourselves”: Residential agents prepare for return of foreign buyers

Posted: 08 Nov 2021 05:45 AM PST

The gates are opening, and residential agents in major U.S. markets such as New York and Miami are preparing for a resurgence of foreign buyers. Prospective buyers who have been sitting on the sidelines since the pandemic began last year are setting up appointments with their agents in the U.S. now that the travel ban has been lifted on Monday for 33 countries, including some in the European Union, the United Kingdom, China, Canada, Mexico,

Federal bill would mandate insurers offer pandemic policies

Posted: 08 Nov 2021 05:00 AM PST

Desperate to recover losses incurred during the pandemic, restaurants and retailers turned to their insurers, only for many to have their business-interruption claims denied. A federal bill aims to prevent that from happening again. The Pandemic Risk Insurance Act, reintroduced last week by New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, would require insurers to offer business interruption policies that would cover some losses from infectious disease outbreaks that are declared a “covered public health emergency” by the

Taxing endeavors: Real estate accountants brace for change out of D.C.

Posted: 08 Nov 2021 04:30 AM PST

As Washington lawmakers tangle over the details of President Biden’s economic agenda, real estate investors and their tax advisors are trying to figure out what it all means — often in the heat of the deal. “Life is going on and transactions are being done,” said Michael Greenwald, a partner at the accounting firm Friedman. “It makes it very difficult for people to plan.” Tax reform is the number-one issue right now at many of

The quixotic quest to make WTC tower 100% affordable

Posted: 08 Nov 2021 04:00 AM PST

Nothing is ever easy in New York City, it seems. Especially at the World Trade Center. The latest wrench in the rebuilding is a grassroots campaign to change the plan for a tower slated for 130 Liberty Street, where the Deutsche Bank Building once stood. As if Gov. Kathy Hochul did not have enough to deal with nine months before the biggest election of her life, the New York Times asked her last month about