The redevelopment of Pier A in Battery Park City has hit a major hurdle, as Battery Park City Authority officials realized the landmarked structure is in worse condition than initially suspected. According to DNAinfo, that could increase the time and cost necessary to transform the rotting pier into an oyster bar and catering hall. [more]

Battery Park City Authority CEO Gayle Horwitz and a rendering of ball fields on the community spaceAfter 43 years as the lead developer of Battery Park City, the Battery Park City authority is nearing completion of its last projects on the neighborhood built on landfill from the excavation of the original World Trade Center site.

The Wall Street Journal reported that a $50 million community center and sports facility will open in February, and later in 2012, the redevelopment of Pier A will be complete.

“We are closing one chapter as real-estate developer and opening a new chapter as a building manager,” said Gayle Horwitz, chief executive of the authority. [more]

From left: Yair Levy, Rector Square (source: PropertyShark) and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman

A state Supreme Court judge has ordered developer Yair Levy to pay $7.4 million in restitution to the Rector Square condominium and permanently banned him from selling real estate in New York state.

Judge Joan Lobis found last month that Levy defrauded the Battery Park City condo conversion, spending millions of dollars in reserve fund money on illegal personal and general business expenses, including charge card accounts, mobile phone bills and writing checks to family members.

The judgment permanently bans Levy from selling condos or co-op projects in New York state, virtually ending a career lasting more than 30 years in the U.S. [more]

To look out the windows from the 10th floor of Larry Silverstein’s shiny new 7 World Trade Center is to take visual stock of how far Lower Manhattan has come since Sept. 11, 2001. There’s the already-skyscraping 1 World Trade Center to the right, Towers 3 and 4 rising to the left, the soon-to-open memorial plaza below, and the new W Downtown staring back from across the construction site. A few blocks to both the east and west, Lower Manhattan now houses more residents than it has ever before seen, and still more are moving in — in droves. And soon, of course, Condé Nast will arrive, and with it, as is presumed to be the case, so will the neighborhood.

So this morning, when some of the most important architects of this turnaround convened to celebrate “The New Downtown,” alongside the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate and Silverstein Properties, there was a natural, and deserved, optimism in their voices (see photos above). But there was also an unmistakable air of exasperation, as if to say, what else can we possibly do to get major retailers and restaurateurs to take notice? [more]

An agreement struck today could prove crucial in ensuring existing Battery Park City residents can continue to afford their homes. According to Crain’s, the Battery Park City Authority, the public agency that manages the neighborhood, voted to pass a two-month old proposal to cut monthly ground rents for condominium owners in 11 buildings by $279 million over the next 30 years. Established in the mid-1980s, ground rents force owners to pay rent on the ground upon which their building stands and costs were scheduled to more than double over the next few years, and total $804 million through 2042. [more]

While building and development projects stagnated across most of New York City during the financial crisis, Battery Park City has been largely unaffected, according to the Wall Street Journal. Over the past 10 years, nine residential buildings with 2,435 units have been built as part of a 40-year master plan developed through the state’s Battery Park City Authority. While hundreds of residents were displaced after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and many didn’t return, a combination of temporarily reduced rents, government subsidies and rebuilding funds helped to restore the neighborhood. The influx of new developments has caused apartment prices to drop 17 percent, according to the Real Estate Board of New York. On Battery Park’s last two developable sites, Milstein Properties is constructing two residential buildings that are slated for completion in 2011. In between the two buildings will be the 52,000-square-foot Battery Park City community center, which will have a pool and fitness center, a 156-seat theater and classrooms. [WSJ]

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Pier A, which for more than two decades has sat vacant and dilapidated at the southernmost point of Manhattan, may need to wait four additional months before getting its scheduled revamp because of a contract dispute, according to Downtown Express. The Battery Park City Authority lost its construction manager and general contractor in a span of just two days after the former was found to have insufficient resources to complete the project and the latter upped its asking price by $1.7 million. The BPCA is now seeking a replacement for the general contractor position, with applications due June 30. The construction manager role has already been filled — but the new firm, LiRo Group is more expensive. As a result of the turnover, the project has been pushed back from next April to late Summer 2011. Still, the $30 million grant from the New York City Economic Development Corporation should be more than enough to fund the project, BPCA officials said. It is slated for completion in 2012. [Downtown Express]

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Rector Square and Yair Levy

(Updated: 5:10 p.m. with comment from Yair Levy and YL Rector Street LLC)
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed suit against embattled developer
Yair Levy for $7.4 million, alleging he underfunded and illegally
withdrew millions of dollars from the reserve fund at the Rector Square condominium in Battery Par [more]

The Battery Park City Authority’s $1 billion in funding bonds are “on watch” for a ratings downgrade by Moody’s after a joint city and state deal to take back $861 million in residual funding for the area, the company announced Monday. The deal, reached last month by the Bloomberg and Paterson administrations, will put the Battery Park City funds toward affordable housing and closing the city and state budget gaps. Moody’s said those funds had been factored into the bonds’ previously high ratings. A downgrade is “pending assessment of the impact of the withdrawals,” Moody’s said. [NYO]

Battery Park City condominium owners and buyers may soon find it easier to obtain government financing for their purchases in the area. Fannie Mae had, in recent months, taken issue with Battery Park City’s ground leases, which vary widely from condo to condo and have an additional layer of complexity that comes from the Battery Park City Authority holding a master lease for the entire area. As Fannie Mae became more cautious, its mountain of paperwork grew and those complex ground leases got more difficult to sift through. But the government-sponsored mortgage giant has now hired an outside law firm to help it tackle the Battery Park City logjam, which, sources told the Broadsheet Daily, will make the process move much more quickly. State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is also said to have reached out to Fannie Mae officials to discuss financing difficulties in Battery Park City. In a letter to the Battery Park City Authority dated April 5, a Fannie Mae executive wrote, “Fannie Mae is ready and willing to purchase eligible loans secured by condominiums in Battery Park City,” though he did not reveal which condos would be eligible. [The Broadsheet Daily]