Five glass-walled condominium units at 1055 Park Avenue and 87th Street have sold despite a long and difficult struggle by developer Trevor Davis, the Wall Street Journal reported. The buyers all closed this past Friday upon orders from a bankruptcy judge, as the building worked out a foreclosure threat. The final, and sixth, apartment will close in the next couple of weeks for more than $5 million, court records reveal. The condo units, in a narrow 12-story glass tower designed by Kohn Pederson Fox Associates, were not well received by neighbors. Davis bought the site in 2005 and struggled to complete it, eventually filing for bankruptcy in December of last year. The bankruptcy court dictated that all five condos be sold on the same day, providing the $18.2 million needed to pay off the first mortgage. [more]

The auction of developer Yehuda Leib Puretz’s stalled Waterfront Commons mall site in Staten Island was canceled yesterday, a day after his firm filed the $90 million project into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The Brooklyn-based developer, who was planning the 380,000 square-foot mall in the Richmond Valley section of Staten Island near the Outerbridge Crossing, defaulted on a $21.5 million loan connected to the project after the economy stalled in 2008, sources said.

“It [was] largely just a factor of the economy,” said Andrew Boyle, a consultant on the project and COO of the Boyle Group, based in Malvern, Pa. [more]

Petra Fund Real Estate Investment Trust and Petra Offshore Fund, subsidiaries of hedge funder Andy Stone’s Petra Capital Management, filed for Chapter 11 protection yesterday in Manhattan U.S. Bankruptcy Court, according to Crain’s. In the filing, the REIT listed assets between $1 million and $10 million and claimed liabilities between $100 million and $500 million. The REIT’s investments were largely concentrated in commercial loans, sources say, which likely degraded in value leading to overall malaise at the company. [Crain's]

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The owners of the 350-room Crowne Plaza hotel in Hartford, Conn. have filed for bankruptcy reorganization under Chapter 11, according to the Hartford Courant. The Christian Hotel Owners Association, a group of mostly Korean American investors operating as CHOA Vision LLC, purchased the 38-year-old hotel, near I-84, for $20.2 million in 2007. The property was assessed last year for $9.7 million. CHOA is seeking to restructure upwards of $10 million in debt, including $1.2 million in unpaid property taxes to the city and $300,000 in unpaid state sales taxes, according to documents filed earlier this month in federal court in California. CHOA isn’t the first hotel operator to run into trouble in the region, which has been hit hard by low occupancy rates as business travel dropped during the recession. Last year the Hilton Hartford came close to failing before the city came to its financial rescue, and the Goodwin Hotel shut down in 2008. [Hartford Courant] 

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One of the developers of Williamsburg’s Warehouse 11, the 120-unit luxury condominium at 214 North 11th Street, has exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The deal cut down the debt load of developer Isack Rosenberg and his partners at McCaren Park Mews to $35 million. The partners, who defaulted on their $50 million mortgage with Capital One Bank last summer, hope to pay off their remaining balance through sales of the remaining 36 units in the Karl Fisher-designed building. Sales had come to a halt during the bankruptcy process, but relaunched with verve in January as the developers slashed prices and raced against the clock to raise cash by a lender-imposed deadline. Aptsandlofts.com, which is marketing the building, expects the remaining units to go quickly now that the developers have worked through the bankruptcy. [Brooklyn Paper]

H. Thomas O’Hara Architect designed Twenty9th Park, on left, and the Mondrian Hotel, on right

The luxury Manhattan design firm H. Thomas O’Hara Architect filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, but remains in operation, recent court documents show. The firm, which designed buildings such as Twenty9th Park at 39 East 29th Street and the Mondrian Hotel at 150 Lafayette Street, filed for Chapter 11 protection Dec. 11 in federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan. The filings show assets of $1.2 million and debts of $4.3 million. The bulk of the money counted as assets, some $1.1 million, was in unpaid money owed to the firm by clients, the papers show. The largest amount the firm owes was $1.5 million to Citibank Commercial Loan Servicing, while the second largest amount was owed to the Internal Revenue Service for unpaid payroll taxes, totaling $643,166. The president and managing member of the firm, H. Thomas O’Hara, said in an interview with The Real Deal today that he filed the suit because of the difficult financial pressures brought on by the declining economy. [more]

In their first official response to the bankruptcy filing of 20 Bayard, lawyers for W Financial Fund last week urged a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge to reject a motion by developer Isaac Hager to continue operating the Williamsburg condominium with monthly rent and parking fees. Hager, president of North Development Group, threw the 64-unit condo into bankruptcy last month, when he was unable to make a $170,000 interest payment to W Financial, or refinance a $17.4 million bridge loan. In a Dec. 9 filing, Martin Ehrenfeld, restructuring officer for the developer, asked permission to use the rent and parking fees to cover monthly maintenance charges for at least 120 days until a reorganization plan is worked out with creditors. After selling 24 apartments before the real estate market collapsed in 2008, Hager rented out nearly all of the remaining units until the condo market recovered. According to the court documents, 20 Bayard has $1.28 million in net operating income per year. [more]

20 Bayard

In a move that stunned real estate executives and residents of the
building, the sponsors of 20 Bayard Street in Williamsburg filed the
condominium into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late this
afternoon. According to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Brooklyn, the
condo by North Development Group owed more than $10 million to more
than 50 creditors. The reason for the filing was unclear, however bankruptcy is often
used by developers to prevent a property from being foreclosed on.
Records with the city Department of Finance show that Istar Financial
inherited the building loan from subprime lender Fremont Bank.
However, court documents show that Manhattan-based hard money lender W
Financial among the listed creditors. The creditor with the largest unsecured claim was Add Plumbing, a
contractor at 120 Evergreen Avenue in Brooklyn. The claim was for
$325,000. [more]

SI Hotel Holding filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday in an effort to stave off a foreclosure sale on the Staten Island Hotel. The 187-room Graniteville hotel is one of several projects by SI Hotel Holding principal Leib Puretz that are currently in foreclosure, according to the Staten Island Advance. Puretz is reportedly in foreclosure for over $86 million in loans for projects planned for development in the borough. The Staten Island Hotel has approximately 50 to 99 creditors, according to documents filed in federal court, and has liabilities of over $10 million, the Advance reported.