Grubb & Ellis said the exclusive negotiation period for the struggling commercial real estate brokerage to hammer out an acquisition or other strategic alliance with Colony Capital, expired this past Sunday.
The Santa Ana, Calif.-based firm, which hired investment bank JMP Securities in March to explore a potential suitor, said it will continue to discuss a possible deal with Colony Capital, a real estate fund led billionaire Thomas Barrack, and will pursue discussions with other potential partners as well.
Meanwhile, Grubb & Ellis said it has made significant progress with a potential sale of its Daymark Realty Advisors subsidiary, and expects to reach an agreement soon. Daymark, manages more than 30 million square feet of commercial real estate, including 8,700 multi-family apartment units nationwide.  [more]

From left: Joseph Moinian, 245 Fifth Avenue and Joseph Sitt

Joseph Sitt’s Thor Equities and developer Joseph Moinian have completed the long-awaited deal to buy out Goldman Sachs at 245 Fifth Avenue for $162 million.
The property, near 28th Street, had been up for sale since January, when Moinian and his previous venture partner, Goldman Sachs Whitehall Funds, decided to put the building up for sale through Eastdil Secured.
The property was originally purchased for $190 million, or $620 a square foot, at the height of the market in 2007. [more]

Dan Garodnick and Stuyvesant Town

CW Capital Asset Management said it reached an agreement with Pershing Square Management over millions of dollars in mezzanine debt at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Coo [more]

Tamir Sapir and the William Beaver House

Billionaire developer Tamir Sapir is facing a $130 million lawsuit from a fund controlled by the Blackstone Group, alleging he defaulted on a multi-million-dollar loan used to develop the William Beaver House condominium in the Financial District.

GSO Re Onshore, the fund managed by Blackstone subsidiary GSO Capital Partners, filed suit Monday against Sapir individually in New York State Supreme Court, seeking a judgment on the $66 million loan that he guaranteed and then failed to repay by the November 2009 maturity date.

“GSO RE would not have made the loan to SDS William Street absent Sapir’s personal and unconditional promise to repay the loan set forth in the guarantee,” wrote Kobre & Kim attorney Elizabeth Wolstein, who is representing the fund.

The lawsuit alleges that as of November 2009 Sapir owed $48.7 million in interest, on top of the $66 million in principal. Another $15.7 million in new interest is now due, resulting in the $130 million claim for summary judgment. [more]

It has been taken as an article of faith in the current downturn that tenants are shying away from highly leveraged buildings in an effort to protect themselves against possible building service cutbacks or other interruptions tied to onerous debt-service payments.

High leverage along with financially strapped ownership, legal uncertainty or extremely high vacancy, lead to tenants shunning leasing in certain buildings, brokers have said.

As recently as last week, Real Estate Board of New York panel member Isaac Zion, a managing director at SL Green Realty, said relatively low leverage on the company’s buildings was an advantage.

“Most of our buildings have very low leverage, so it is a positive. We see sort of — for the tenants that are actually moving — there is a flight to quality,” Zion said.

But data requested by The Real Deal from two research firms reveals that the situation is complex, and that high leverage in some buildings leads to high availabilities, while in others it does not. [more]