From left: Durst Fetner CEO Harold Fetner, Ian Schrager and 855 Sixth Avenue
Developer Durst Fetner Residential is abandoning hotel plans as well as cutting the height of its planned high rise at 855 Sixth Avenue three blocks south of Herald Square. [more]
From left: Durst Fetner CEO Harold Fetner, Ian Schrager and 855 Sixth Avenue
Contrary to previous reports, Ian Schrager will not bring a Public Hotel to Durst Fetner Residential’s Herald Square development site, the New York Post reported. A Durst spokesperson said the partnership “couldn’t make the financials of the deal work” for 855 Sixth Avenue, at West 30th Street, and that the developer is in talks with other hotel brands instead. A design won’t be finalized until a hotel is on board. [more]
Ian Schrager will bring his first Public Hotel to New York at a Herald Square site being developed by Durst Fetner Residential, the Wall Street Journal reported. The plan calls for a 250-room hotel on the 16 lower floors of a Cook + Fox Architects-designed 56-story residential building at 855 Sixth Avenue near 30th Street.
Schrager is famous for pioneering the boutique hotel concept, but with the Public line, one of which recently opened in Chicago, the hotelier plans to build more value-oriented hotels.
“The boutique [hotel market] is overcrowded now and very competitive,” Schrager said. “People are now just replicating someone else’s idea, only in a different color.” … [more]
The first unit at 1212 Fifth Avenue is in contract, the West 57th Street pyramid is continuing as planned and construction will begin at 855 Sixth Avenue next April, Harold Fetner, president and CEO of Durst Fetner Residential, an affiliate of the Durst Organization, said in an interview with the New York Observer.
The 1212 Fifth Avenue project, which called for a complete gut renovation of the pre-war building at East 102nd Street, will open its accompanying sales office “any day now,” Fetner said, but he’s already seen interest in the apartment from 500 people on a waiting list to tour the units, and even accepted an offer last night. … [more]
A state court judge handed a victory to Durst Fetner Residential this week,
removing a nagging legal speed bump the developer was facing at its large
Herald Square site.
The legal cloud has hovered over the property at 855 Sixth Avenue since 2006,
when two real estate investors sued a group of developers led by Baruch Singer over a failed partnership bid to acquire a portion of the site.
Durst Fetner became involved in the dispute after it bought the defaulted note for about $104 million from iStar Financial and took title in December 2010 from owners Tessler Developments and the Chetrit Group.
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Newmark Knight Frank’s Brandl Frey has been poached by the Durst Organization, where she’ll be the company’s newest leasing manager. Frey, who was most recently a director at Newmark on James Kuhn and Brian Waterman’s team, and previously worked as a broker at Cushman & Wakefield, will be helping to market more than 10 million square feet of commercial property for Durst, president Jonathan Durst announced today. In the past, Frey was a leasing agent for 1333 Broadway, 855 Sixth Avenue and 250 West 57th Street, among others, and has represented tenants like Morgan Stanley, CBS and Tommy Hilfiger. TRD
The Continental, at 885 Sixth Avenue, is one of Midtown’s newest skyscrapers, a 53-story building rising on the corner of 32nd Street. At one point, the 388-unit rental tower was suffering from the slumping economy, and only a cost-savings agreement with the construction trade unions saved it. The Continental is one of several new projects in the area, though not all have been successfully built, the New York Times reported. A vacant lot at 855 Sixth Avenue is the site of a residential
development that never got off the ground. Nearby is the Beatrice, at 835 Sixth Avenue, a rental and hotel building that recently opened. “This neighborhood doesn’t really have a name or a clear identity, but it continues to grow,” said Richard Hamilton, a senior vice president at Halstead Property who specializes in properties in the area. “It’s appealing to some because it is so central, with Broadway plays just 10 blocks to the north, Chelsea to the south, nightlife and shopping relatively accessible, and then there is great transportation.” [NYT]
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The potential bankruptcy of iStar Financial could affect several New York properties where foreclosure proceedings are already underway, though experts say it’s too early to predict what may happen, according to Crain’s. As of December 2009, commercial real estate lender iStar had 11.7 percent of its loans concentrated in New York. Trump Soho New York, the hotel-condominium, is one of the projects financed by iStar. The company recently increased its mortgage by $20 million through a restructuring. iStar also has loans on some New York properties currently in foreclosure proceedings, according to data from Real Capital Analytics. Its $131 million loan for a development site at 855 Sixth Avenue is currently delinquent and foreclosure proceedings were recently initiated on an apartment building at One Madison Park at 20 East 23rd Street, owned by Slazer Enterprises, where iStar holds the $310 million delinquent mortgage. There’s also litigation underway related to its $76 million delinquent mortgage for an apartment building at 49 East 34th Street, owned by Esplanade Capital. [Crain's]
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