The foreclosed, lawsuit-laden, incomplete tower that stands at One Madison Avenue scared away most of New York City’s big-name developers, except for Bruce Eichner, who reportedly placed a low-ball $45 million bid. So it came as quite a surprise last month, the Observer said, when a man intent on rising to those ranks agreed to pay $165 million to acquire the Flatiron tower. That man is Ziel Feldman, and it’s one of several risky bets the head of HFZ Capital is making in the midst of a market recovery. It started during the boom, when Feldman successfully refurbished a pre-war condo at 823 Park Avenue, and sold units for more than $2,000 per square foot. [more]

Artist Cosimo Cavallaro and former Yankee Bobby Abreu made multi-million dollar price cuts

An artist, a baseball player and a financier are among those who have
made million-dollar price cuts to their apartments. Filmmaker and
sculptor Cosimo Cavallaro first put his 15,000-square-foot apartment
and gallery at 20 South Fourth Street on the market for $12.8 million a
year ago. After several price cuts, Cavallaro landed on an asking price
of $5.95 million last week. Former New York Yankee Bobby Abreu cut the
price of his One Beacon Court condo to $6.9 million from $7.9 million.
Ramesh Singh, who left his position as global head of mortgage-backed
securities at UBS, cut the price of his 823 Park Avenue home to $14.5
million last week, $10 million lower than the unit’s August list price
and $5.5 million lower than what he paid for the unit in June 2008. [more]

The unit to see the biggest price cut today is a seven-bedroom, seven-bath condo at 823 Park Avenue, according to Streeteasy.com. The price of the 7,234-square-foot duplex was cut by $2.25 million, and it is now on the market for $14.5 million, 41 percent less than its original price of $24.75 million in August 2008, when the listing was with Brown Harris Stevens. The home is now listed with the Corcoran Group’s Carrie Chiang and Loy Carlos. TRD [more]