The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

JLo and A-Rod close on Star Island mansion for $33M. The house next door also sells for $24M

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 03:35 PM PDT

Two more stars have officially joined Miami Beach’s Star Island. Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez closed on their waterfront mansion for $32.5 million. The superstar couple are the buyers of 13 Star Island Drive, as previously reported by The Real Deal. The 10-bedroom, 15,011-square-foot home was on the market for $40 million. E&A Estates is the seller. The property features 100 feet of water frontage, a pool with a Jacuzzi, cabana, covered bar and dock.

Husband of falling-facade victim files wrongful-death suit

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 03:30 PM PDT

The widower of the woman killed last winter by terra-cotta falling in Midtown has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the building owner and the city. Steven Tishman, whose wife, Erica Tishman, was killed Dec. 17, argues that the city had eight months’ notice of dangerous conditions at 729 Seventh Avenue and did nothing, according to a lawsuit he filed in Manhattan Supreme Court Monday. The lawsuit claimed the city and building owner Himmel + Meringoff

Checkbooks out: Nearly $60M in Brooklyn luxury contracts inked

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 03:00 PM PDT

Luxury home buyers in Brooklyn whipped out their felt-tipped pens last week, extending the market’s robust August. Much of the pandemic has seen just a trickle of contracts signed for homes asking $2 million or more — typically four or five per week. But during the third week of August there were 15, as there were the previous week. The properties were asking a combined $58.5 million, up from $39 million the week before, and

Senegal sued again over Midtown tower project “clouded with corruption and cronyism”

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 01:30 PM PDT

Months after the Senegalese government paid $25 million for a bulk condo purchase at a controversial Midtown tower it developed, an architect on the project claims the country owes him millions in unpaid fees. Pape Diedhiou, who is based in New York City, filed a $2.4 million lawsuit following a years-long effort to collect payment, he claims. Filed last week in federal court in New York, it marks the second time Senegal has faced legal

Gerald Hines, developer who changed Houston’s skyline, dies at 95

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 01:10 PM PDT

Gerald Hines, who transformed Houston’s skyline and built the Lipstick Building in Manhattan, died at his Connecticut home Sunday. He was 95. Hines built some of Houston’s largest office and shopping centers including the sprawling, upscale Galleria and Pennzoil Place downtown. Born in Gary, Indiana, Hines, whose father was an electrician in a steel mill, said on a childhood trip to Chicago that one day he wanted to build such skyscrapers, according to his company’s

Fighting for survival, more Brooklyn small businesses pay rent

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 12:45 PM PDT

Brooklyn small businesses are increasingly paying rent and capitalizing on all the help that they can get as they miss out on some of the most profitable months of the year. Twenty-eight percent of small businesses have failed to pay rent in August, according to a Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce survey of 234 owners. That’s the same as last month, but a marked improvement from 44 percent in April. However, concessions from landlords have risen.

Developer of Amazon’s Staten Island campus claims conspirators cut it out of another lucrative deal

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 12:30 PM PDT

A company that played a key role in bringing Amazon and Ikea to a huge e-commerce campus on Staten Island claims a cast of characters conspired to cut it out of another lucrative development on the island. Staten Island Marine Development, a remediation company, claims it spent a year laying the groundwork to redevelop a former Exxon oil storage facility, formerly known as Port Mobil. The company, also known as SIMD, now says in a

Lawmakers urge kicking property tax can down the road

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 12:00 PM PDT

State legislators are calling for another postponement of New York City’s annual sale of delinquent property tax bills. As the New York Post first reported, Sen. Leroy Comrie and Assembly member David Weprin have introduced a bill to keep 9,500 residential and commercial properties from foreclosure. This would mark the third time the sale — which was originally scheduled for May 15 — has been delayed in light of the pandemic. The two Queens democratic

Price drops fuel bump in Manhattan’s luxury market

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 11:45 AM PDT

Discounts and days on market. That is what defined the biggest luxury deals in Manhattan from Aug. 17 to 23 as pandemic price drops offered a boost to an otherwise slow summer and moved properties that had sought buyers for years. Contracts were signed for 14 homes asking $4 million or more, matching the total for the same week last year. The most expensive was a 15-room duplex at 655 Park Avenue, which was asking

Manhattan homes with outdoor space sell at 5% premium

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 11:25 AM PDT

A private balcony or terrace in a Manhattan home has always been a perk, but in a pandemic they justify a boost in sales prices. Condos and co-ops with private outdoor space are selling for 5.4 percent more per square foot since March 15 than they were prior to the pandemic shutting down the city, reports Bloomberg citing a data analysis by appraiser Jonathan Miller. On the flip side, condos and co-ops without exterior space

Target to open new Hell’s Kitchen store by year end

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 11:00 AM PDT

Target is just about on the mark with opening its new store in Hell’s Kitchen. The company signed a lease for retail space at the base of Xinyuan Real Estate’s condominium project at 615 10th Avenue in 2016 and was set to move in last year. Now, the new store is scheduled to open at the end of 2020, a representative for Target confirmed. The retail giant will take up about 29,000 square feet of

Life after Cher: Goddess of Pop’s former Miami Beach mansion to list for $22M

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 10:34 AM PDT

If she could turn back time, would Cher have held onto her Miami Beach home? Not sure, but the Goddess of Pop’s former waterfront mansion on LaGorce Island is hitting the market for $22 million, according to listing agent Lourdes Alatriste of Engel & Voelkers Miami. The 11,460-square-foot home at 64 La Gorce Circle has six bedrooms, seven bathrooms and one half-bath. Property records show it’s owned by LaGorce 64 LLC, led by Jonathan Chogui.

California wildfires, still raging, have destroyed 1,200 homes and commercial buildings

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 09:15 AM PDT

The massive wildfires that have engulfed parts of Northern and Central California have destroyed more than 1,000 homes and commercial buildings since late July. The blazes have burned 1.3 million acres in a month, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis, and a potential storm rolling through the state in the coming days could make ongoing fires worse. In addition to the structures already destroyed, another 80,000 buildings are threatened by fire, the Times analysis

Real estate investors raise billions while skipping debt payments

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 08:30 AM PDT

In the real estate investment world, being delinquent on debt doesn’t mean investors have run out of money. They are likely to be cutting losses to shift funds into something more lucrative. Colony Capital, for example, stopped making payments on many of its hotel bonds when the pandemic hit, while raising at least $6 billion to invest in properties such as cell towers and data centers, according to Bloomberg. “We’ve been very careful not to

Brooklyn’s City Point signs 62K-sf lease with school

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 07:36 AM PDT

The massive City Point development in Downtown Brooklyn will soon add a private school to its mix of residential and commercial uses. The BASIS Independent Brooklyn, a rapidly growing private school, has signed a lease for its second campus in Brooklyn in the City Point complex, Paul Travis of Washington Square Partners told the New York Post. The new, 62,000 square-foot facility will open in the fall of 2021 and serve pre-K through second grade.

How Carl Icahn and others made a killing shorting malls

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 06:30 AM PDT

The pandemic has devastated brick-and-mortar retail, but some investors profited handsomely by betting on shopping malls’ misfortune. Among them is Carl Icahn, one of the country’s best-known investors, who took a calculated risk that malls would suffer. Since the onset of the pandemic, Icahn has been outspoken about his shorting on the mall-heavy CMBX 6 index. “The malls were way overbuilt to begin with,” Icahn told the New York Times, “but additionally, the real problem

Doug Steiner talks Steiner Studios’ Brooklyn expansion

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 05:00 AM PDT

Movies and television shows are how Doug Steiner makes his living, but he does not watch them. That came up when The Real Deal chatted with him about Steiner Studios’ plan announced this month to build a 525,000-square-foot television and film studio in Sunset Park. The project is being built at the city-owned Bush Terminal. Steiner’s eponymous company won the de Blasio administration’s competition to redevelop part of the property and sign a long-term ground

Sotheby’s Chris Poore jumps to BHS

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 04:30 AM PDT

Chris Poore is bringing his A-list rolodex to Brown Harris Stevens. On Friday, the firm said Poore and Eyal Dagan, his husband and business partner, will join the residential firm after six years at Sotheby’s International Realty, where they sold real estate to clients including designer Marc Jacobs and comedian Trevor Noah. Since 2014, the duo has sold $350 million worth of real estate. The move comes at a time when the city’s agents are

As president, here’s what Joe Biden would do to Opportunity Zones

Posted: 24 Aug 2020 04:00 AM PDT

Over the last four years, President Trump has dismantled or drastically changed numerous rules and policies put in place under his predecessor, former President Barack Obama. But if elected president, Joe Biden would only seek to modify the Opportunity Zones program, one of Trump’s signature measures in the 2017 federal tax overhaul. Biden, who accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination on Thursday, says the Opportunity Zone program has not lived up to its goal. “In too