The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Terzi owes $58M and counting on Midtown SoulCycle building: suit

Posted: 22 Apr 2022 12:35 PM PDT

Yet another creditor is coming after retail landlord Jack Terzi. Wells Fargo is moving to foreclose on Terzi’s three-story property at 240 East 54th Street on behalf of CMBS bondholders, alleging he owes $57.7 million on a pair of notes on the property, with the debt growing $10,000 every day he doesn’t pay up. The founder of JTRE Holdings, Terzi is battling creditors across his Manhattan portfolio. Wells Fargo is moving to foreclose on his

Soho penthouse scores record price for non-doorman building

Posted: 22 Apr 2022 10:59 AM PDT

No doorman? No problem. Penthouse B at 20 Greene Street in Soho, a 6,800-square-foot apartment, sold in an off-market deal for $35.8 million. At $5,300 per square foot, it is believed to be the highest price ever paid for a New York City pad in a non-doorman building. The home does have 2,300 square feet of outdoor space, which doesn’t count in the metric but surely inflated the price. Another factor: The apartment was sold

Google to open retail store in Williamsburg

Posted: 22 Apr 2022 10:42 AM PDT

Google will bulk up its New York City footprint with a retail store in Williamsburg this spring. The tech giant leased a one-story building at 134 North 6th Street, Commercial Observer reported. The space, most recently a pop-up shop operated by The North Face, offers 3,980 square feet on the ground floor along with a similarly sized cellar. Details on the lease’s length and the asking rent for the space, which is owned by Domenic

Strip club owner alleges Tabak family conspiracy in $100M suit

Posted: 22 Apr 2022 09:30 AM PDT

When God closed the door on a Manhattan strip club, he opened a window for lenders to fight for control of a real estate portfolio allegedly worth over $200 million. Scores, the notorious Chelsea gentlemen’s club that inspired the 2019 film “Hustlers” but was shuttered by the pandemic, is one of several properties owned by Robert Gans. In a lawsuit filed this week, the real estate investor alleges a “sweeping and predatory scheme” on the

Here come the robots: life sciences firm nearly doubles LIC footprint

Posted: 22 Apr 2022 08:45 AM PDT

Long Island City’s up-and-coming life sciences sector has notched an expanded lease for a growing tenant. Opentrons, a firm that builds lab robots for biologists, nearly doubled its office space at 45-18 Court Square to just shy of 94,000 square feet, the Commercial Observer reported. The expansion comes less than a year after Opentrons first set up shop in the LIC building known as Innolabs. The company moved to the facility from Dumbo, Brooklyn last

Bergen County apartments trade for $22M in 1031 exchange

Posted: 22 Apr 2022 08:00 AM PDT

A real estate tax break on the Biden administration’s chopping block is at the center of a $23 million multifamily deal in New Jersey. Bergen County-based Hornrock Properties sold a 62-unit luxury apartment building at 15 West Johnson Avenue in Bergenfield for $22.5 million, the commercial brokerage Kislak Realty announced Thursday. Kislak declined to name the buyer, identified only as A. Hackensack LLC, but confirmed that the seller was Hornrock, which developed the building. Kislak’s

Foreclosures surge 181% to highest levels since March 2020

Posted: 22 Apr 2022 06:30 AM PDT

Some eight months after a nationwide moratorium on foreclosures expired, foreclosure filings soared to the highest level since the pandemic began. Last month, 33,333 properties across the U.S. faced foreclosure, a 181 percent jump from March 2021 and 29 percent pop from February, according to a report by foreclosure tracker Attom. The first quarter saw 78,271 properties with a foreclosure filing, a 39 percent from the previous quarter and 132 percent from last year. Those

Hamptons rentals shoot for seven figures

Posted: 22 Apr 2022 05:45 AM PDT

Renters will have to pay a pretty penny to summer in the Hamptons this year, but some owners’ pricing may prove to be aspirational. South Fork owners are seeking record rents for the season, more than $1 million per month in some cases, Bloomberg reported. Landlords are expecting demand to be at least as high as it has been in the first two summers of the pandemic. The market is being paced by an eight-bedroom,

Ranking the top 20 home sales on the Upper East Side

Posted: 22 Apr 2022 05:00 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 all the data and market information you need. The richest home sales on the Upper East Side in the past 12 months included a co-op that sold for 50 percent over ask, a six-floor mansion discounted 27 percent and an exit from a failed condo conversion. To

New bidder emerges for William Vale in never-ending saga

Posted: 22 Apr 2022 04:00 AM PDT

The battle for the William Vale hotel has been worthy of reality TV. In the latest twist, a new bidder popped up just as a deal with Brooklyn landlord Zelig Weiss to purchase the property’s debt and equity from All Year Holdings seemed done. The latest to seek control of the trendy Williamsburg hotel is a group led by health care executive Avi Philipson, according to court documents and filings on the Tel Aviv Stock

NY unveils “playbook” for building owners to cut emissions

Posted: 21 Apr 2022 02:54 PM PDT

With the clock ticking on owners of the city’s biggest buildings to cut emissions, the state has launched a resource to steer them through the process. Dubbed the carbon neutrality playbook, the online guide outlines four steps for owners to reduce greenhouse gases without breaking the bank. Gov. Kathy Hochul, joined by Mayor Eric Adams, announced it Thursday at the Empire State Building, which has gotten the green treatment from owner Empire State Realty Trust.

Durst scores $100M loan for 825 Third

Posted: 21 Apr 2022 12:00 PM PDT

The Durst Organization received a nine-figure infusion at 825 Third Avenue. JPMorgan Chase provided a $100 million loan at the 40-story office building in Midtown East, , according to property records released last week. The loan is for three years. Lucas Durst, Jonathan Durst’s son and an associate with the company, signed the loan documents. Lucas said in a statement reported by the Commercial Observer the loan helps to pay for a $150 million renovation

South Bronx leads mid-market investment sales with $42M land deal

Posted: 21 Apr 2022 10:45 AM PDT

The biggest mid-market sale recorded in New York City last week was in the Bronx. Beitel Group’s Binyamin Beitel, through an LLC, purchased a development site at 120 East 144th Street in Mott Haven, the Bronx, for $41.5 million from Tori Realty Group. Beitel Group has filed permits for a 13-story residential building on the property with 470 units. While that sale was slightly above the typical $10 million to $40 million range of transactions

Wolf of Bleecker Street: Jonah Hill in contract to sell Noho condo

Posted: 21 Apr 2022 10:30 AM PDT

Movie star Jonah Hill didn’t have a superbad time selling his Noho apartment. The movie star found a buyer for his Schumacher building condo at 36 Bleecker Street just five weeks after putting it on the market for $11 million, the New York Post reported. The actor purchased the four-bedroom, four-bathroom unit for $9 million in 2015. He later converted it to a three-bedroom, which has been on and off the rental market from 2019

Blackstone explains how it’s beating inflation, rate hikes

Posted: 21 Apr 2022 10:00 AM PDT

Blackstone just reported its second-best quarter ever for cash flow, behind only the previous one. The investment firm announced distributable earnings of $1.55 per share in the first quarter, a 61 percent jump from the same period last year. Net income slipped to $1.22 billion from $1.75 billion, attributable to the slower growth of its private equity portfolio. Blackstone’s real estate assets drove much of its earnings growth, said CEO Stephen Schwarzman, as rents from

Daytime TV honcho and former U.S. ambassador buy UES co-op for $11M

Posted: 21 Apr 2022 09:15 AM PDT

After two price cuts and almost two years on the market, a pre-war co-op in a quiet Carnegie Hill building has found a buyer in a soap opera showrunner and his former ambassador wife. Bradley Bell, the longtime executive producer and head writer for the CBS drama “The Bold and the Beautiful,” and his wife, Colleen Bell, who served as U.S. ambassador to Hungary from 2015 to 2017, paid $11 million for a three-bedroom unit

Southampton hotel trades for $14M ahead of revamp

Posted: 21 Apr 2022 08:36 AM PDT

A hotel in Southampton is poised for a revamp after selling last week for $14 million. Hampton Resorts, LLC sold The Atlantic at 1655 County Road 39 in Southampton in a deal closed April 12, Behind the Hedges reported. Wyoming-based Stomp Capital was the buyer of the property, Anthony Cerio of Brown Harris Stevens confirmed to The Real Deal. Hampton Resorts reportedly picked up the property in 2015 for $5.7 million. The four-acre property includes

432 Park Avenue condo in $70M contract for in-house buyers

Posted: 21 Apr 2022 07:00 AM PDT

The buyers in contract for one of the biggest residential sale of the year know what they’re getting themselves into at 432 Park Avenue, alleged plumbing and mechanical issues and all. The buyers behind the 82nd-floor deal are Yossi Benchetrit and Gaëlle Pereira Benchetrit, the Wall Street Journal reported. Yossi is the chief procurement and programming officer at Altice USA, while Gaëlle founded cosmetic clinic Clinique des Champs Elysées New York. The couple is in

Harry Macklowe makes his first move in Miami

Posted: 21 Apr 2022 06:15 AM PDT

Harry Macklowe is trying his hand in Miami, The Real Deal has learned. Macklowe Properties purchased 1.7 acres of land between Dadeland Mall and the Metrorail tracks with plans to build a pair of apartment towers with several hundred units, marking its first South Florida project. Rilea Group and Euroamerican Group, through an affiliate, sold the property for $31.9 million, according to Charles Penan of Aztec Group, who represented the sellers. Penan declined to disclose

Spectacular Hamptons estate heads to auction

Posted: 21 Apr 2022 05:45 AM PDT

A Southampton estate owned by a controversial art magazine publisher and collector is going up for auction. The home at 366 Gin Lane will be auctioned off May 2, according to PropertyShark records. The estate is owned by Louise Blouin, a Canadian art and media head whom the New York Post dubbed “the Great Gatsby of the art world.” The auction comes six years after Blouin was named in the Panama Papers, a leak of

3 painful facts for Manhattan renters — and happy ones for landlords

Posted: 21 Apr 2022 05:00 AM PDT

Apartment hunting in New York? Brace for an insufferable spring. In the first quarter of 2022, the median Manhattan rent soared nearly $1,000 above last year’s level to a new high of $3,695, according to a StreetEasy report. In part, those jumps reflect the bottomed-out market at the beginning of 2021 when monthly rents fell to a decade-long low and an unprecedented 42 percent of Manhattan units included at least one month of free rent.

Billion-dollar refi reveals what tenants pay at 601 Lex

Posted: 21 Apr 2022 04:00 AM PDT

Beneath a $1 billion loan at a landmarked Midtown office building that rests on stilts, a major office tenant is opting for newer space. Ken Griffin’s hedge fund Citadel will leave behind 144,000 square feet of office space at 601 Lexington Avenue when its lease expires in August, denting the 1.7 million-square-foot building’s revenue by more than nine percent, according to credit ratings agency DBRS Morningstar. But despite an uncertain future for Manhattan’s office towers,

Fifth Avenue office asks $400M

Posted: 20 Apr 2022 02:45 PM PDT

An office property in the heart of Midtown hit the market aiming for a sale price north of $400 million. Beacon Capital Partners and MetLife are seeking a buyer for their space at 575 Fifth Avenue. The roughly 500,000-square-foot office condominium at the corner of West 47th Street is 80 percent leased, according to marketing materials from Cushman & Wakefield, where a team led by Adam Spies and Doug Harmon is handling the process. Representatives

Flushing megasite sells to Skyline Tower developer for $103M

Posted: 20 Apr 2022 02:30 PM PDT

The developer behind Queens’ tallest building picked up a Flushing site with permits for a massive mixed-use project for $103 million, a slight discount from when it last changed hands five years ago. Chris Jiashu Xu, founder of United Construction and Development Group, bought the vacant property at 131-01 39th Avenue from Young Nian Group, according to the law firm Kasowitz Benson Torres, which represented Young Nian in the deal. Xu financed the purchase with

CBRE affiliate buys two Amazon warehouses for $230M

Posted: 20 Apr 2022 02:00 PM PDT

Wildflower has chosen to let Amazon’s warehousing bloom in East New York under different ownership. The company sold two Brooklyn warehouses operated by Amazon to CBRE Investment Management for $230 million, the Commercial Observer reported. The all-cash deal unfolded earlier this month; CBRE’s Doug Middleton and Brian Fiumara represented both sides of the deal. Amazon Logistics inked a deal to lease the 211,000-square-foot Brooklyn Logistics Center in 2020. The adjacent warehouses at 12555 Flatlands Avenue

Rising rates are headwind for multifamily lending: M&T

Posted: 20 Apr 2022 01:00 PM PDT

UPDATED April 21, 2022, 12:25 p.m.: M&T Bank on Wednesday reported a decline — as expected — in commercial real estate lending in the first three months of 2022. The rest of the year isn’t looking any better: Citing rising interest rates, the Buffalo-based bank — a top multifamily lender in New York — said Thursday it doesn’t expect to make more commercial real estate loans this year than last. In this year’s first quarter,

No “Ordinary People”: John Legend, Chrissy Teigen find buyer for Nolita apartments

Posted: 20 Apr 2022 11:55 AM PDT

A buyer is waiting to get the green light before buying a pair of Nolita penthouse apartments from John Legend and Chrissy Teigen. The celebrity couple is in contract to sell the units at 374 Broome Street to an undisclosed buyer, the New York Post reported. The crooner and his cookbook-writing supermodel wife listed the units for $18 million in January. The couple purchased the contiguous units in 2018 and 2020 for $9 million and

Healthcare real estate investment expected to hit $25B this year: report

Posted: 20 Apr 2022 11:06 AM PDT

Money is expected to keep flowing into healthcare real estate this year as the sector draws continued interest from investors. Approximately $25 billion of capital is expected to be allocated towards healthcare real estate this year, according to a CBRE report. That would mark a major increase from 2021, when transaction volume in the sector was just under $16 billion. Buyers are planning to flood the market this year to take advantage of the booming

On this Hamptons beach, even a tiny plot fetches $10M

Posted: 20 Apr 2022 09:35 AM PDT

In Amagansett, it’s not size that counts — it’s proximity to the water. Retail investor Mickey Drexler dropped $9.5 million on a home in the Hamptons neighborhood, Dirt reported. The size of the home isn’t clear, as the transaction was entirely off-market, but the plot of land is less than seven-tenths of an acre. The oceanfront home has more advantages in Amagansett than being on a body of water. The property separates itself with additional

New York’s last-mile boom meets anti-pollution push

Posted: 20 Apr 2022 08:00 AM PDT

As the spread of last-mile warehouses picks up steam in New York, one lawmaker is aiming to cut down on the pollution that follows. Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes introduced a bill this week to reduce pollution from truck exhaust associated with these warehouses, The City reported. The bill would force the New York Department of Environmental Conservation to adopt a rule that labels e-commerce facilities as “indirect sources” of air pollution. New York would be the

Loss of $21B in business travel to dampen hotel recovery

Posted: 20 Apr 2022 06:45 AM PDT

As hotels fight to recover from the pandemic’s ravages, a continued downturn of business travel will continue to harm the market. Hotel revenue from business travel will remain 23 percent below 2019 levels in 2022, American according to a forecast from the Hotel & Lodging Association and Kalibri Labs reported by Bloomberg. The nationwide shortfall amounts to a projected $20.7 billion revenue loss when compared to three years ago. Though leisure travel is forecast to

Developer “shocked and blindsided” as board rejects North Fork project

Posted: 20 Apr 2022 05:45 AM PDT

A North Fork affordable housing project is on life support after the local planning board advised against it. Rona Smith’s Cutchogue Woods development at 15690 Middle Road in Cutchogue received disapproval from the Southold Planning Board last week, the Suffolk Times reported. The board claimed the 24-unit development was not supported by the town’s comprehensive plan, citing the project’s location in an agricultural conservation zoning district and its distance from the nearest hamlet center as

Quintessential Stephen Ross moments from “The New Kings of New York”

Posted: 20 Apr 2022 05:00 AM PDT

Billionaire, NFL owner and one of Manhattan’s most famous loudmouthed developers, Stephen Ross has never been one to hold back his opinions. From a young age, the future Related Companies chairman showed what his elementary school principal in the Midwest called “spirit,” or what we in New York call “chutzpah.” Call it what you want; Ross has a way with words. Some of the best have been immortalized in “The New Kings of New York,”

Serhant ventures upstate to market NevelHaus project

Posted: 20 Apr 2022 04:00 AM PDT

Ryan Serhant is taking a hike upstate. NevelHaus, a home building platform, is launching its second collection of homes on 44 acres, which the firm just closed on in Stone Ridge, NY. Co-founded in 2020 by Joshua Gelb and Pelle Hamburger, the firm has tapped Serhant’s eponymous brokerage along with the Upstate Curious Team of Keller Williams Realty Hudson Valley North. The project marks the first time Serhant is selling new construction homes and its