The Apthorp, at 2211 Broadway
Irish Bank Resolution, which changed its name from Anglo Irish Bank in July 2011, has decided not to sell a portion of its U.S. loans due to fears of lawsuits from U.S. customers, whose consent would have been required in order to sell their performing loans, an article in Irish Times said.
The bank will maintain an office in Boston to manage the $1 billion in U.S. loans that it retained, the paper said. [more]
229 West 43rd Street
Restaurant company Heartland Group is expanding its presence in the Times Square neighborhood, after signing a nearly 16,000-square-foot lease at the former New York Times Building at 229 West 43rd Street, city property records show.
The Midtown-based company, which operates two large restaurants under the Heartland Brewery and HB Burger names only a block away, signed the new lease Dec. 1 with Africa Israel USA, which owns the retail condominium at the Times Square Building, the records say. [more]
Ian Schrager and the Clock Tower at 5 Madison AvenueHotelier Ian Schrager appears to be returning to the Clock Tower at 5 Madison Avenue.
According to Real Estate Weekly, Marriott International purchased the 220,000-square-foot office tower overlooking Madison Square Park from Africa Israel and plans to turn it into an Edition Hotel, the boutique hotel line it launched with Schrager. Africa Israel was previously reported to have sold the tower for $165 million, but the buyer was only identified as “a credit-worthy” one.
Though Marriott typically does not own its real estate, the hotel operator wants to buy property for its struggling Edition line, which it hopes will compete with Starwood’s W Hotel brand, to help get it off the ground [more]
The developers of the Upper West Side’s Apthorp condominium are planning to withdraw their lawsuit against Anglo Irish Bank, according to documents filed in New York state Supreme Court this past Friday, and will allow the lender to sell the property’s troubled $385 million building loan to Dallas-based Loan Star Funds.
Anglo, the senior mortgage lender at the troubled condo, at 2211 Broadway, blasted the developers, led by Africa Israel USA and Broadwall Management, in a proposed order submitted to Judge Jeffrey Oing, detailing what it considers numerous attempts by the building sponsors to squirm out of their crumbling lawsuit, which sought to block the bank from selling the senior mortgage.
“Plaintiff’s current effort to dismiss this case in its entirety suggests that Anglo’s contention that this is a strike suit may well be correct,” Anglo Irish lawyers wrote in the proposed order. [more]
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has shut down the sales office at the Apthorp, fined the developers $190,000 and ordered rescission for all contracted buyers following an investigation into misleading statements made to the AG months before they filed suit to block Anglo Irish Bank from selling their $385 million mortgage loan.
The Apthorp developers, led by Africa Israel USA and Broadwall Management, filed suit against the troubled bank Sept. 12, alleging the sale of the $385 million Apthorp loan would “adversely impact sales” and potentially “threaten the conversion project itself.”
[more]
From the September issue: In 2009, the landscape was bleak for New York City real estate lawyers.
Many of the big firms tried shifting people between departments to deal with the slowdown in real estate business caused by the economic downturn. Then, they let people go through attrition, and even outright layoffs. But it still wasn’t enough, lawyers said.
“When we were at our smallest, we still weren’t as busy as we’d like to be,” said Robert Ivanhoe, chairman of the New York office and the global real estate practice at Greenberg Traurig. “Even after the downsizing, we weren’t at capacity.”
Ivanhoe, though, was happy to be speaking in the past tense. In the last six months, he said, Greenberg Traurig’s New York real estate practice has increasingly focused on transactions, rather than the debt restructuring work that his and other firms fell back on to keep busy in the lean years.
[more]
Private equity firm the Blackstone Group has completed its purchase of the top 11 floors of the 15-story former New York Times building at 229 West 43rd Street, according to public records filed with the city this morning.
As The Real Deal previously reported, the deal saw Blackstone pay developer Africa Israel USA and private equity firm Five Mile Capital $160 million for approximately 450,000 square feet of the building, which includes a portion of the fourth floor and floors five through 15.
“We are making a significant real estate contribution to the neighborhood for which we are proud,” Tamir Kazaz, CEO of Africa Israel USA, said in a statement in April about the sale. Kazaz said the company used the proceeds of the sale to pay down a portion of the $265 million first mortgage.
[more]
Irene Front’s Apthorp apartment has mice crawling around and a broken doorbell, but the landlord has yet to resolve all problems there, residents told the New York Times. Front, a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor, lives in the building at the southwest corner of Broadway and 79th Street, where many of the 163 apartments were once rent regulated. While the once-broken heating system in her apartment has been fixed, she says management has been slow to respond to other issues in her home (note: clarification made). Since the building was bought in 2006 by investors who started a condominium conversion, market-rate renters have left as their leases have ended. Meanwhile, the developers — including Africa Israel USA and the Feil Organization — renovated those apartments, and are now trying to sell them for $2.6 million to $7.8 million. [more]
Africa-Israel USA is negotiating with less than six management companies about running the hotel portion of the former New York Times building at 229 West 43rd Street and hopes to choose one next month, said Richard Marin, the company’s CEO. The company is also working to secure financing so it can redevelop the Clock Tower — formerly the Met Life headquarters — on Madison Square Park, into more down-scale condos, a different project than the more upscale model the company proposed in 2007, Crain’s reported. Before the recession hit in 2007, Africa-Israel was one of the most prodigious buyers of high-profile properties, purchasing the former New York Times Building, the Apthorp complex on the Upper West Side and the Clock Tower. But since the recession, the company has run into problems with its holdings. As part of its efforts to redesign its projects, Africa-Israel hired Peter Rosenberg as managing director of development. The Clock Tower will be among the projects he’ll supervise. [Crain's]
From the February issue: It’s been a sort of parlor game in New York’s real estate community for
some time: speculating on whether peak-market buyers will hold on to
their highly leveraged properties.
Then, in a move that shook the industry last month, Tishman Speyer
Properties and BlackRock Realty decided to turn over the keys to the
$5.4 billion Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.
But not everyone has gone this route. Other overextended borrowers
have kept control of their properties following a debt restructuring,
including developers Lev Leviev and Joseph Moinian.
As part of a workout — the complex process that’s often decided by
the leverage each party has in the development — the bank or private
equity firm must weigh its options. [more]
