The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

The Durst Organization bought the Clock Tower development site in Long Island City from Property Markets Group and Hakim Organization for about $175 million, The Real Deal has learned. Durst plans to build one of the neighborhood’s biggest rental projects on the site, which allows for a project of about 1 million square feet. The sellers had sought to develop an 800-unit project – two-thirds rentals, one-third condos – on the vast Queensboro Plaza site … [more]

Raymond Chalme and Daniel Blanco’s Broad Street Development has landed $96 million in financing from Bank of the Ozarks for a planned 61-unit apartment building in Nolita. The financing package includes a $63 million construction loan for the 12-story development at 304 Mulberry Street, loan documents show. The remaining $33.5 million from Bank of the Ozarks replaces an earlier acquisition loan. Chalme and Blanco paid $178.5 million for 298 and 304 Mulberry in 2014, and … [more]

The quiet Lower East Side neighborhood, Two Bridges, is about to get a lot louder.

This week, Starrett Corp. unveiled designs for a 62-story glass tower at 259 Clinton Street. The Perkins-Eastman-designed building will have 732 apartments and 2,500 square feet of commercial space — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. JDS Development, L+M Development Partners and Extell Development Company all have projects either planned or underway, which, between all of them, will bring more than 3,500 units to the area.

To see the full story and renderings of all the projects, watch the video here.

The owner of a building next to the proposed One Flushing affordable-housing project in Queens is suing the city and Monadnock Construction, claiming the 10-story building will rob him of his light and air easements. Sam Yuan, who owns the three-story retail-and-office building at 40-48 Main Street, filed a lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court Wednesday naming Monadnock and the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development as defendants. Monadnock, according to the complaint, is expected … [more]

The price cuts at Extell’s One57 just keep coming. Last week, $2 million was lopped off the asking price of apartment 65A. It’s now on the market for $25.9 million, $3.3 million less than what the seller paid in 2014. The chop on the 65th floor follows a $1.8 million discount on unit 52B which, which is now asking $29.9 million. It’s far cry from 2014, when a penthouse in the building sold for $100 … [more]

From the South Florida website: The law is clear on Miami Beach. Short-term rentals of less than six months and one day are banned in all single-family home districts in the city. [more] … [more]

From the December issue: The total sales dollar volume in Brooklyn and Queens for small residential buildings — which has surged in the last five years — has seen its slowest quarter since 2013. In 2012’s first quarter, the combined dollar volume for both boroughs was under $250 million. In 2016’s second quarter, it hit a high of more than $650 million but then dropped to around $475 million in the third quarter. At the same … [more]

U.S. builder confidence in single-family homes hit an all-time high in December, reaching the highest level seen in more than a decade. According to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, builder confidence for new single-family homes across the U.S. rose seven points from last month. This month’s reading of 70 points was the highest seen since July 2005, when confidence also reached 70 on the index. The spike, however, might be … [more]

A construction foreman who was found responsible for the 2015 death of a 22-year-old worker at a Meatpacking District job site was sentenced to one-to-three years in prison, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. announced Thursday. Wilmer Cueva, 51, was found guilty last month on charges of criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment after he apparently ignored warnings about safety issues at the construction site at 9-19 Ninth Avenue, the site of a Restoration Hardware … [more]

The Real Deal is completely redesigning its Data Book, now in its 12th edition. The industry’s most comprehensive collection of information on the New York-area real estate market will sport more pictures and a new look, bringing more of the style and energy TRD‘s flagship magazine is well-known for. Now with a greater focus on industry players and rankings of top residential agents, commercial brokers, law firms and more, the Data Book gives you essential statistics … [more]

Tenants at 150 Charles Street already count Jon Bon Jovi, Ben Stiller and swimsuit model Irina Shayk as their neighbors. The newest addition is the building’s developer, Steve Witkoff, who has shelled out $48 million on five condominium units. Witkoff closed on the purchase of at least five sponsor units at his own West Village condo building — a penthouse, four-bedroom, three-bedroom, two-bedroom and a studio, according to property records filed with the city on … [more]

The Bunnies are back. The Playboy Club is making its return to New York City following a decades-long absence, with plans to open a new restaurant and entertainment space at the site of the former Out Hotel. From the 1960s through the mid-1980s, Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner’s nightclub operated out of a space on East 59th Street, but left the city when the trendy spot closed in 1986. But now Merchants Hospitality Group plans to … [more]

Mel Watt, the head of the federal agency overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said he plans to stay on in his role even after President-elect Donald Trump assumes office. Watt is an appointee of President Obama and his term at the helm of the Federal Housing Finance Agency ends in 2019. The mortgage insurers face an uncertain future eight years after their bailout by the federal government. Although Trump’s team has not disclosed a … [more]

[caption id="attachment_1279652" align="aligncenter" width="570"] Guests at Cooper-Horowitz’s holiday event[/caption]

Why put off till the evening what you can get done over lunch?

Cooper-Horowitz’s mid-day holiday party brought in a procession of bankers, brokers and builders to Grand Central Station Wednesday, where industry types swapped hugs and celebrated getting through a challenging year in the real estate finance market.

Click here to see the photos and read more.

Land use deals are often political maneuvers that are years in the making and hard to track. But under newly proposed legislation, the city would be required to log any such promise in a public database, and to provide progress reports on such deals. The measure cleared the land use committee Wednesday, Politico reported, and is expected to be passed by the City Council today. The proposed legislation would require annual progress reports to the … [more]

At the end of a pedestrian tunnel, down a flight of stairs from street level, a plush bar with a Prohibition motif caters to wealthy newcomers who have gentrified Manhattan’s Lower East Side, displacing immigrants and blue-collar workers. Amid chandeliers, velvet couches and Rubenesque oil paintings, bartenders serve beer bottles in paper bags and pour $14 cocktails into teacups. The beige pre-World War I tenement above the bar also profits from the neighborhood’s transformation. In … [more]

The Related Companies closed on a 75-year ground lease on the final piece of land it needs to develop 50 Hudson Yards, the largest building planned for the developer’s Far West Side megaproject. The firm, which is partnering with Oxford Properties Group on the development, will pay $60.8 million in rent for 503-505 West 33rd Street, the Commercial Observer reported. The property — currently home to a 8,945-square-foot building — is owned by 503 West … [more]

The Chetrit Group — which backed out of a high-end condo conversion at the Sony building earlier this year — has proposed a mixed-use project at an eight-acre industrial complex in Queens. The property at 57-46 56th Street in Maspeth is home to several warehouses, and it straddles tracks used by the Long Island Railroad, Crain’s reported. Chetrit‘s plans, while still in the early stages, are likely to fit with the low-rise housing nearby, the developer … [more]

More than two dozen tenants are suing landlord Seth Miller, claiming he’s created a slew of unsafe conditions — including mold, damaged ceilings, lack of heat and hot water and a rat infestation — at 919 Prospect Avenue in the South Bronx. “The landlord has demolished the bathroom leaving rats, vermin, as well as lead dust,” Leander Hardaway, a tenant of the rent-stabilized building, told Politico. In a complaint filed in Bronx Housing Court, the … [more]

With land in Manhattan hard to come by, developers have grown accustomed to combining lots and tapping unused air rights in order to construct high-rise towers. But one developer, DDG, is facing pushback from elected officials and preservationists for doing just that at the site of its proposed 32-story condominium on the Upper East Side. As a result, the city has stopped work at the site, at 180 East 88th Street, and sales have halted as the … [more]

From the December issue: In October, one of New York’s savviest boutique hoteliers, BD Hotels, did something that has cost a succession of its well-heeled predecessors dearly. It bought the Hotel Chelsea, the scruffy New York City landmark at 222 West 23rd Street with an illustrious artistic pedigree. BD Hotels, which takes over the property from the partnership group of investor Bill Ackman, Leucadia National Corp. Chairman Joseph Steinberg and real estate investment firm Wheelock Street … [more]

The Related Companies, in partnership with New York City pension funds, picked up a four-building Prospect Heights portfolio from Debrah Lee Charatan’s BCB Property Management for $30 million, or about $570 per square foot, sources told The Real Deal. The contiguous five-story walk-ups at 315-329 Lincoln Place, about a block from Brooklyn Museum, collectively span 52,543 square feet. The buildings have 48 apartments — a mix of rent-stabilized and free-market — and a capitalization rate … [more]

Current reader favorites: 1. Manhattan’s New Skyline (*© CIM Group) 2. Uniqlo in talks for 100K sf store at 23 Wall 3. Flushing’s growing pains 4. Blackstone’s Gray said he was “surprised” by Trump meeting 5. 15 CPW penthouse hits market for $59M … [more]