The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

DOB fines Kushner Companies for falsifying dozens of permits

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 03:00 PM PDT

UPDATED August 27, 7:38 p.m.: The New York City Department of Buildings fined Kushner Companies $210,000 on Monday for falsifying dozens of permit applications at 17 buildings in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The New York Times first reported the DOB levied the fines for 42 instances in which Kushner made misrepresentations about the existence of rent-stabilized tenants at buildings, thereby potentially avoiding regulations intended to protect tenants from abuse during periods of construction. The company will have […]

Adam America, Slate land $71M refi for East Williamsburg rentals

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 02:45 PM PDT

Adam America Real Estate and Slate Property Group refinanced their East Williamsburg rental building 120 Union Avenue with a $71 million mortgage from Deutsche Bank, according to sources familiar with the deal. Adi Chugh’s Maverick Commercial Properties brokered the deal. Chugh and Deutsche Bank declined to comment. Adam America confirmed the deal. In a statement, Slate’s David Schwartz said the neighborhood is “ready to take off because of its location and easy access to multiple […]

LeFrak seeks to benefit from Opportunity Zones at SoLē Mia project

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 02:15 PM PDT

Tony Blair, Lloyd Blankfein, Steven Mnuchin and others gathered for a four-day conference in the Hamptons sponsored by the Milken Institute to talk about some of the world’s most pressing topics. One of the sessions focused on affordable housing, where U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin discussed the importance of a new federal tax incentive called Opportunity Zones, according to Bloomberg. During a panel discussion at his Southampton home, developer Richard LeFrak talked about the impact […]

Starter home prices reach highest level in more than a decade

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 01:30 PM PDT

The barrier to entry for homeownership is on the rise. Starter homes are at the highest prices since 2008, Bloomberg reported. In the second quarter, first-time buyers needed nearly 23 percent of their income to afford a typical entry-level home — up from 21 percent a year earlier. “When prices go up at the entry level, that’s where the affordability issue is most acute,” Charles Dougherty, a Wells Fargo economist, told Bloomberg. “People are hesitant […]

Meridian Capital scoops up debt brokers Adam Hakim and James Murad

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 01:00 PM PDT

Meridian Capital Group hired former Eastern Consolidated brokers Adam Hakim and James Murad to expand its debt brokerage business. Hakim will have the title of senior managing director and Murad will join the company as a senior vice president, Commercial Observer reported. Andrew Iadeluca, formerly an associate director at Eastern, will join Meridian as a director. Meridian chairman and CEO Ralph Herzka said that with the new hires, the company aims to “substantially increase our […]

Steven Guttman’s art storage company to spend up to $100M on second location in New York

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 12:30 PM PDT

The art storage company Uovo is buying its second location in Bushwick. Uovo, founded by developer Steven Guttman, is in contract to buy 105 Evergreen Avenue, a two-story warehouse spanning 150,000 square feet, according to Crain’s. Guttman plans to spend up to $100 million on purchasing and renovating the building into a facility that will store prized art. Guttman previously purchased a site on 22nd Street in Long Island City, where he built a roughly […]

LaSalle mulls other offer as Blackstone refuses to up $3.7B bid

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 12:00 PM PDT

Blackstone Group isn’t budging on its $3.7 billion bid for LaSalle Hotel Properties, prompting the real estate investment trust to consider another offer. Maryland-based Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, which has long sought to buy the luxury hotel company, made a bid last week that LaSalle’s board unanimously agreed may lead to a superior proposal, Bloomberg reported. LaSalle agreed in June to be bought by Blackstone for $33.50 a share. If the deal falls through, Blackstone will […]

Long Island Cheat Sheet: Estée Lauder offered tax breaks to open $14.5M Melville facility … & more

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 11:00 AM PDT

Suffolk IDA offers tax incentives to tempt Estée Lauder to open $14.5M Melville facility The Industrial Development Agency for Suffolk County offered up $895,000 in tax breaks to Estée Lauder in an effort to sway the cosmetics company to open a $14.5 million-dollar facility in Melville, rather than other locations its considering like New Jersey or Pennsylvania. The two states have made similar incentive offers to the company, Newsday reported. Estée Lauder already employs 2,502 […]

Fortis plans $113M sellout for 1 River Park

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 10:30 AM PDT

The last condominium building in the second phase of the Long Island Hospital College redevelopment will hold 48 units and go on the market for a total price of $113 million, an offering plan filed with New York State Attorney General’s office shows. Fortis Property Group’s 1 River Park is the last of three new construction condo buildings under development at the former Cobble Hill hospital. Fortis filed offering plans for 2 and 5 River […]

Bronx college planning new 91-unit dorm, nursing school in Riverdale

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 10:00 AM PDT

Riverdale’s College of Mount Saint Vincent is planning to add a new six-story, 91-unit building to its campus. The school filed plans with the Department of Buildings on Monday for a building at 6301 Riverdale Avenue that will span roughly 60,000 square feet. It will contain space for dorm rooms and a nursing school. The dorms will take up about 40,000 square feet of space, while the nursing school will take up about 20,000 square […]

Michael Cohen’s partner falsely claimed multifamily buildings had no rent-stabilized tenants: report

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 09:20 AM PDT

Michael Cohen’s joint-venture partner filed paperwork with the city falsely claiming that there were no rent-stabilized tenants at three buildings the investors owned together, the Daily News reported. Eric Nelson’s Vintage Group filed construction applications for the property at 172 Rivington Street indicating there were no rent-stabilized tenants living there, according to the newspaper. But records with the city’s Department of Finance show there were 20 stabilized tenants living in the building, and by the […]

Here are the week’s top luxury sales

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 08:30 AM PDT

Each week, The Real Deal and CityRealty look back at Manhattan’s priciest apartment sales.

New Yorkers buying homes with Trump’s tax reform in mind

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 08:00 AM PDT

New Yorkers are moving to low-tax states like Florida or seeking out properties with tax abatements in order to mitigate the impact of President Trump’s tax reform. “I work with a lot of clients in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey — so all high-tax states — and we are seeing a lot of them move south, especially to Florida,” Robert Westley, a certified public accountant based in New York City, told the New York […]

Brooklyn luxury market saw 14 contracts signed last week

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 07:30 AM PDT

The Pierhouse’s sales streak hasn’t stopped yet. The Brooklyn luxury market saw a total of 14 contracts signed last week, and a condo at the Pierhouse once again took the top spot. This was the third week in a row that a Pierhouse unit was No. 1 and the sixth week in a row that a Pierhouse unit took one of the top two spots. The properties sold for about $42.2 million overall and went […]

Solomon Feder plans 43-unit apartment building in Kensington

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 07:00 AM PDT

A parking lot in the Kensington section of Brooklyn is the site of a planned eight-story residential building with 43 apartments. The property at 210 Parkville Avenue will span 33,900 square feet and will most likely contain rentals, according to building plans cited by New York YIMBY. Property records identify the owner as Shimon Lefkowitz, who also owns the 200-bed Waterford on the Bay senior living facility in Sheepshead Bay. Solomon Feder of Velocity Framers […]

Manhattan’s luxe resi market put on a “dazzling” late-August performance last week: Olshan

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 06:39 AM PDT

Manhattan’s luxury residential market put on a “dazzling late-August performance” last week, recording 24 contracts at $4 million and up, according to Olshan Realty’s weekly market report. Last week’s activity represented a significant boost over the same week last year, when just 15 luxury contracts were signed. The priciest deal last week was for a co-op at the Pierre Hotel at 795 Fifth Avenue, which had an asking price of $22.5 million. Apartment 1602 went […]

“Every day is a fire drill”: Construction startup Katerra struggles to stay on track as it scales up

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 06:00 AM PDT

Construction startup Katerra — valued at $3 billion following an $865 million funding round in January including SoftBank — is struggling with delays and quality control as the company tries to scale up. Many in the real estate industry are paying close attention to the three-year-old company, which aims to cut costs by streamlining the construction supply chain. But the company’s faced challenges such as scaling up automation at its flagship factory in Arizona, which […]

NYPD in talks for large spread downtown

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 05:15 AM PDT

The New York Police Department plans on taking 106,000 square feet of office space at 375 Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan. The NYPD is close to signing a 20-year lease for the entire 15th through 17th floors at the 32-story building owned by Seattle-based Sabey Data Center Properties and Youngwoo & Associates, Commercial Observer reported. Rent will start out at $41 per square foot for the first five years of the lease and escalate to […]

How political infighting is choking efforts to expose dirty money hidden in US real estate

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 04:30 AM PDT

A Malibu mansion and Gulfstream jet were seized from the playboy son of the president of Equatorial Guinea, who pilfered hundreds of millions of dollars from his starving country. Authorities retrieved $100 million from a bank used by Hezbollah to wash money from drug trafficking. And a foreign not-for-profit is facing charges that it helped Iran evade sanctions by secretly investing in a Manhattan skyscraper. In each case, American shell companies masked the true identities behind […]

Extell is developing more than 1,500 units in New York. Now it just needs a sales director

Posted: 27 Aug 2018 04:00 AM PDT

Extell has billions of dollars worth of development underway. Now all it needs is a sales director. Gary Barnett’s firm confirmed Friday that it’s searching for a head of sales and marketing, following the departure of Anna Zarro earlier this summer. Zarro, who is still consulting on Extell’s rental projects, joined the company from Town Residential in October 2016. Zarro could not be reached for comment. For one of the city’s most prolific developers, the […]