From top: Capstone Equities principals Joshua Zamir and Daniel Ghadamian; right, 14 Wall Street

Capstone Equities is scouring the market for cash so it can repay the mortgage on its stake in 14 Wall Street before it comes due in May, Crain’s reported. If Capstone, which bought the 37-story, 1 million-square-foot building with the Carlyle Group for $325 million in 2007, doesn’t find a partner, mezzanine debt holder Shorenstein Properties will likely move in on its stake.

Carlyle has already written off the investment as a loss, according to Crain’s, so it isn’t helping in the search for another partner. [more]

Riverside South

Just a handful of bidders remain for 1.35 million of Extell Development and Carlyle Group’s buildable square feet along West End Avenue, and final bids are due by the end of the month. But the New York Post reported that the site is burdened by several major restrictions.

The parcel, named Riverside Center, is located between West 59th and 61st streets, the southernmost part of the massive Riverside South complex. The portion for sale is slated for two residential towers of 43 and 44 stories. [more]

Carlyle Group announced a new real estate fund, Carlyle Realty Partners VI, which has $2.34 billion to spend on opportunistic investments in major cities in North America, the Wall Street Journal reported. The fund, Carlyle’s sixth, will invest in the residential, hotel, senior living, retail and office sectors in markets like New York City, Washington D.C., and major West Coast cities, the company told the Journal. [more]

Clockwise from left: Carlyle Group CEO David Rubenstein, 508 West 24th Street and Cary TamarkinThe Carlyle Group purchased an industrial warehouse near the High Line for $16 million, according to public records filed with the city today, hoping to erect a 10-story residential building on the site. The deal closed Dec. 7.

A two-story, 14,440-square-foot warehouse currently stands on the property, at 508 West 24th Street between 10th and 11th avenues. It sits adjacent to the High Line park on a block with 14 art galleries. The seller is media production company MetroVision Production Group, which had owned the site since 1999, according to public records. [more]

The Carlyle Group is going ahead with its initial public offering plans, even though its valuation is at $8.5 billion, only a little more than half the valuation of its competitor, Blackstone Group, the New York Post reported.

The reason is that Wall Street doesn’t place as high a value on the money it makes from buying and selling companies, according to the Post. Blackstone has $15.3 billion in enterprise value, although the two private equity firms have roughly the same $150 billion in assets under management.

Steven Schwarzman’s Blackstone has a higher valuation because it has diversified into advisory services such as corporate restructuring, while David Rubenstein’s Carlyle still depends heavily on buyout deals. It has not been able to persuade bankers that it was worth as much as Blackstone because could promise steadier earnings. Carlyle recently placed two Midtown development sites on the market in a joint venture with Extell Development.
[more]

From left: Daniel D’Aniello, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, Gary Barnett, president of Extell Development, and developer Donald Trump

Two Trump Place development sites, one on the southwest corner of 61st Street and West End Avenue and the other at the northwest corner of 59th Street and West End Avenue, have been placed on the market, the New York Post reported, by a joint venture between the Carlyle Group and Extell Development, as the two companies seek to reduce their holdings. Sources said the sites could fetch a combined price of upwards of $400 million. Together the parcels have approval for up to 1,200 apartments, the Post said, and are currently in use as parking lots. Holliday Fenoglio Fowler is marketing the two lots on behalf of the partnership. [Post]

Highgate Hotels, Crown Acquisitions and the Carlyle Group have bought 170 Broadway between Liberty Street and Maiden Lande for more than $100 million, Crain’s reported. They plan to to turn the 108 year old, 18-story office building, that they acquired from AMG Realty Partners, which is part of GE Capital, into a hotel. Neither of the participants in the deal had an immediate comment. Lower Manhattan has had significant hotel growth recently, Crain’s noted, with at least seven other hotels currently in development in the area. Tourism continues to be strong, although room and occupancy rates are still down from their highs in 2008. This project marks the first time the three firms are working together. [more]

A new tenant for the high-profile Takashimaya building at 693 Fifth Avenue will likely pay a ground-floor rent higher than the $2,000 per square foot that Swatch recently signed for in a space nearby, property owner Joseph Sitt, chairman and CEO of Thor Equities, said in an interview with Insights from The Real Deal (see video above).

Swiss-based Swatch inked a 15-year deal that starts at about $2,000 per square foot in the retail condo at 666 Fifth Avenue owned by Carlyle Group, Kushner Companies and Crown Acquisitions.

Sitt said there was “no question” he would get rents in the range of $2,500 per square foot. He added there were six tenants looking seriously at the space in the 20-story building.

In addition, Robert Knakal, chairman of commercial brokerage Massey Knakal Realty Services, told Insights that the first quarter sales for retail property in Manhattan nearly reached the $586 million figure for all of 2010. [more]

Swiss watch retailer Swatch signed a 15-year lease today valued at $80 million for the
remaining 2,000-square-foot ground-floor retail space in the commercial condominium
at 666 Fifth Avenue owned by a joint venture of the Carlyle Group, Kushner Companies
and Crown Acquisitions, sources close to the deal said.
The rent for the space with a 20-foot wide frontage squeezed between Hollister and
Uniqlo, was approximately $2,000 per square foot, the source said. Bradley Mendelson, a
top retail broker at Cushman & Wakefield, represented the landlord. [more]

From left: 1180 Sixth Ave., Norman Sturner, president of Murray Hill Properties, and Howard Michaels of the Carlton GroupHoward Michaels has saved the day at 1180 Sixth Avenue, bringing in an anonymous Chinese investor to bail out the owners before a planned foreclosure auction by mezzanine debt holder Shorenstein Properties, according to the Post. Norman Sturner’s Murray Hill Properties and the Carlyle Group had defaulted on their mortgage payments in January after buying the 23-story property, between 46th and 47th streets, for $300 million at the height of the market. Shorenstein filed to foreclose late last month. [more]