Alex Rodriguez and his Riverside Boulevard apartment, and Katy Perry and her Tribeca penthouse

It was a big week for celebrities trying to sell their New York City pads. The New York Post reported that singer Katy Perry and Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez each recently found buyers for their multimillion dollar Manhattan apartments. Alex Rodriguez sold his 3,585-square-foot, full-floor apartment on the 35th floor of the Rushmore, at 80 Riverside Boulevard on the Upper West Side, for $6.6 million. [more]

From left: Ilan and Mati Bracha, an interior shot of a Rushmore condo (credit: Bracha Group Blog) and the exterior of the Rushmore

Ilan Bracha, chairman of the Manhattan brokerage Keller Williams NYC, the local franchise of national firm Keller Williams Realty, is moving up in the world in accordance with the growth of his franchise, which has accumulated more than 160 agents in the last year.

Bracha and wife Mati Bracha, an artist, have purchased a four-bedroom, 3,056-square-foot penthouse at the Extell Development’s Rushmore condominium at 80 Riverside Boulevard, according to public records filed with the city today. The deed for the property is in Mati’s name, records show.  [more]

The Rushmore, Alex Rodriguez and Modlin Group President Adam Modlin

Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez has sold his Rushmore condominium for a significant profit just 10 months after buying it last March, the Wall Street Journal reported. Rodriguez put the unit on the market in October with Modlin Group President Adam Modlin for $8 million, seven months after he purchased it for $5.5 million.  [more]

Clockwise from top left: Extell Development President Gary Barnett, the Rushmore and Carlyle Group co-founder William ConwayAttorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office faced off with lawyers
representing Extell Development and Carlyle Realty Partners yesterday as
a Manhattan Supreme Court judge heard what may be the final arguments
in a long-running effort to overturn a $16 million escrow dispute at the
Rushmore condominium.

Judge Anil Singh was urged to overturn the April 2010 ruling by former
AG Andrew Cuomo, who ordered the developers to refund $16 million
in deposits to 41 buyers at the luxury condo building at 80 Riverside
Boulevard close to 64th Street.

The case centers on whether the developers missed a Sept. 1, 2008 deadline
to close the first sale at the 289-unit building, or whether a scrivener’s
error in the offering plan mistakenly included the wrong date, which the
developers insist should have been Sept. 1, 2009, giving them a one-year
window to finish construction and close the first deal. [more]

Kedar Massenburg, BLU Realty’s Alon Chadad and the Avery

Kedar Massenburg, the former Motown Records president who launched the
careers of Erykah Badu and D’Angelo among others, recently rented an
approximately 1,500-square-foot, three-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment
overlooking the Hudson River at the Avery on the Upper West Side, The
Real Deal has learned. Massenburg and his broker, Alon Chadad, co-founder
of BLU Realty Group,
would not disclose the rent, but said Massenberg did not negotiate on
price. Comparable apartments in the condominium at 100 Riverside Boulevard rented in the last month for about
$9,800 per month, Streeteasy.com shows.
[more]

From left: Lynne Brown, Melissa Ziweslin, Graham Spearman, Heather Cook, Kelley Kennedy Mack and the Rushmore

For the second year in a row, the sales team at the Rushmore, a 289-unit condominium at 80 Riverside Boulevard on the Upper West Side, took home Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group’s top prize at the firm’s annual awards. The team, comprised of Lynne Brown, Lena Nusimow, Graham Spearman, Aidan Sullivan and Melissa Ziweslin, was the top-selling group in the company, with $179 million in closings last year. The deal of the year, meanwhile, was presented to the 101 Warren Street sales team (Heather Cook and Angeli Dahiya) for closing on the building’s last unit, the Skyhome 3460, for $13 million. During the awards ceremony, Kelly Kennedy Mack, president of Corcoran Sunshine, said that the company closed on $1.73 billion worth of new residential development in 2010, up from $1.6 billion the prior year. TRD [more]

The Rushmore and violinist Pinchas ZukermanPinchas Zukerman, a world-renown violinist and a teacher at the Manhattan School of Music, has gone into contract on a three-bedroom unit at the Rushmore condominium, with his wife, cellist Amanda Zukerman, the New York Times reported. The asking price for the 1,712-square-foot 23rd-floor apartment, at 80 Riverside Boulevard, was $2.734 million. The developers, Extell Development Company, who are involved in a $16 million escrow dispute at the building, would not disclose how much Zukerman paid. [more]

Rushmore and Extell’s Gary BarnettLawyers for Extell Development and Carlyle Realty Partners, which operate together as CRP/ Extell, admitted to the state attorney general that they had no evidence to back up claims that a typographical error led to a $16 million escrow dispute at the Rushmore condominium, according to new documents filed in New York State Supreme Court. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed the evidence in response to an October 2010 suit by CRP/Extell that claimed the previous AG, Andrew Cuomo, erred in his April 2010 decision to order the Rushmore developer to refund deposits to 41individual buyers at the condo, at 80 Riverside Boulevard. [more]

From left: Lauren Muss, Carrie Chiang, Janet Wilkinson and Pam Liebman

Residential brokerage the Corcoran Group held its annual company awards ceremony this week, honoring some of its top-producing teams and agents. Lauren Muss was named the Individual Salesperson of the Year, while the Carrie Chiang Team was honored as the Top Team of the Year. Janet Wilkinson took home the Rookie of the Year prize. At Corcoran Sunshine, the top-selling onsite sales team was comprised of Graham Spearman, Aidan Sullivan, Melissa Ziweslin, Lynne Brown and Lena Nusimow, who work at Extell Development’s the Rushmore, at 80 Riverside Boulevard between 64th and 65th streets. TRD

Andrew Cuomo (top), Gary Barnett and the RushmoreA state Supreme Court judge ruled against former Attorney General Andrew Cuomo who filed to dismiss a lawsuit by developer Gary Barnett in the long running $16 million escrow fund dispute at the Rushmore condominium. The former AG argued that the developers, Barnett’s Extell Development and Carlyle Realty Partners, operating as CRP/Extell, missed a key deadline to challenge the April 9, 2010 ruling, in which Cuomo ordered them to refund deposits to 41 buyers at the 80 Riverside Boulevard building. [more]