The Bronx led the city in multi-family sales in October 2011 with 25 buildings sold, totaling $96.6 million, or 37 percent of the city’s multi-family sales for the month, according to a report from Ariel Property Advisors.

Fifty multi-family buildings, totaling $256 million, traded in 28 transactions in the city in October overall, compared to 47 multi-family buildings totaling $402.9 million that traded in 41 transactions in September.

“The Bronx is poised to rebound out of the many restructurings that took place in the last 24 months,” said Shimon Shkury, president of Ariel. – Katherine Clarke [more]

The city’s Department of Buildings does not have the staff and resources
required to keep the Bronx safe, having collected $164.9 million in
fines and fees in fiscal year 2011, but spent only
$99.6 million, according to the New York Daily News.

Far fewer buildings inspectors are assigned to the borough than is
necessary, leading to Bronx fires linked to illegal subdivisions last year, said Jeremy Warneke, district manager of Community Board 11.

“The dearth of inspectors is shameful,” Warneke said. “The agency has
a great staff, but they can’t keep up with the work.”
The department employs 324 inspectors in total and regularly moves
them around between the five boroughs “according to need,” said agency
spokeswoman Ryan Fitzgibbon. Comments

A New York State Senator believes that the city is not enforcing a
2009 state law requiring the owners of foreclosed properties to
maintain them, WNYC reported. State Senator Jeff Klein, who wrote the law, said that enforcing the legislation could have prevented a fatal fire in April
in the Bronx, the borough he represents, along with Westchester. A 12 year old boy and his parents
died in the fire, at 2321 Prospect Avenue, on April 25, and now the
house is boarded up with garbage on the sidewalk, and the two
neighboring houses are uninhabited.  [more]

From left: Gifford Miller and Robert Frost, partner at Signature Urban
Properties

The Department of City Planning will be holding a public hearing on former City Council Speaker Gifford Miller’s Bronx real estate project later this month, the Wall Street Journal reported.

As previously reported, Miller and longtime friend Robert Frost, a partner at Signature Urban Properties, are planning to transform a derelict section of the Bronx near the Sheridan Expressway with 10 new “affordable” apartment buildings, they said.

The $400 million Bronx project is the pair’s first ground-up venture, the Journal said; the area is currently home to a strip of car repair shops and smaller residential buildings. Signature, founded in 2007, is currently working to have it rezoned to allow for the development. [more]

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz has accused the Bloomberg administration of misleading the federal government and abusing the process that it uses to find productive uses for former military sites in order to place a homeless shelter in a former military base in the Wakefield section, the New York Times reported.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg was set on opening a shelter at the site of the Sgt. Joseph E. Muller Army Reserve Center at the corner of 238th Street and Nereid Avenue, Diaz said, despite opposition and the neighborhood already having its share of shelters.
“Its total disrespect, total mistreatment and a flat out lie to the people of Bronx,” he said, “and it doesn’t surprise me one bit; it’s the Bloomberg administration’s m.o.” [more]

From left: David Simone, Marco Lala and Kenneth Krasnow

After nearly seven years in the Manhattan office of Massey Knakal Realty Services, David Simone said that he’s left the firm to start Yellow Brick Realty, which will focus exclusively on commercial sales in the Bronx and Northern Manhattan in the near-term.
During his tenure with Massey Knakal, and his two and a half years with Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services before that, Simone said he brokered more than 100 deals in the Bronx and believed the time had come for him to do something on his own and something specific to the Bronx and Upper Manhattan. [more]

A 75-block segment of the Central Bronx could face a broad rezoning
plan, aimed at revitalizing the area’s lackluster commercial and retail
activity, according to NY1. The proposed region, which runs along
Tremont and Third avenues, has seen massive vacancies, local experts
say. By rezoning the neighborhood, allowing for mixed-use development
and increased residential development, the problem could be solved,
according to Carol Samol, the Bronx director for the Department of City
Planning. “The goal is to revive [the area], to attract affordable
housing, create jobs and improve the services here in the heart of the
Bronx,” Samol said. “The zoning is outmoded and needs to be updated to
meet today’s needs.” [NY1]

[more]

A landlord who made the Village Voice’s list of the top 10 worst property managers is now being taken to task by his tenants, who claim that he’s allowed them to live in squalor, denying their Soundview Bronx apartment building necessary changes. The building, at 1585 East 172nd Street, fell into disrepair when former management company Oceleot Capital abandoned much of its portfolio in the real estate bust. The new landlord, Hunter Property Management, is no better, tenants allege, allowing collapsed floors, broken water pipes and widespread mold to remain unrepaired for over a year. If the judge deems the situation dire enough, Hunter owner Sam Suzuki could face civil imprisonment for his actions, to be determined at a hearing at the end of the month.

The Bloomberg Administration and environmental officials have named the Jamaica Bay as their next cleanup target area. Meanwhile, Chase, the consumer and commercial banking arm of JPMorgan Chase, announced today the opening of two new centers in the tri-state area to help distressed homeowners avoid foreclosure. Click here for more. [more]

Peter Fine

From the February issue: No one could blame Peter Fine if he expected the past year to be easy
– even amid the market turmoil. Widely regarded as one of the city’s
top affordable housing developers, Fine started last year as the
darling of the entertainment world, as the unlikely coproducer of a
Tony Award-winning musical.
With close ties to President Obama’s new urban development guru, he was also more politically connected than ever. However, while his Broadway show, “In the Heights,” has enjoyed
continued success, Fine’s political connections and real estate career
have taken a beating over the past year.  [more]