In an effort to consolidate seven Midtown locations, Citibank renewed its 500,000-square-foot lease at 601 Lexington Avenue, the New York Observer reported. Citibank was previously interest in moving into a new office space during the downturn, according to unnamed Observer sources. [more]

Sheldon Solow

Developer Sheldon Solow has lost a legal appeal to overturn a $98.9 million judgment against him in a suit brought by Citigroup in 2008, Bloomberg News reported.

Citibank filed the $86 million suit against Solow for allegedly failing to pay back loans and letters of credit issued in 2004 to finance a development project along First Avenue, between 38th and 41st streets. [more]

From left: Robert Nelson, owner of Nelson Management, William Mack, CEO of Area Property Partners, and the Boynton Lafayette Houses

Global One Real Estate Fund, an entity controlled by Robert Nelson of Nelson Development, has purchased the Lafayette-Boynton Houses, a middle-income rental complex in the Bronx, Nelson told The Real Deal today.

Global One paid Area Property Partners $51.5 million for the 972-unit property, according to city property records, in conjunction with a joint venture between L + M Development Partners and Citibank.

Nelson Development currently owns Hillside Homes, a 144-unit building on Seymore Avenue in the Bronx, and Atlantic Towers, a 718-unit complex on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. [more]

A group of Israeli investors is set to purchase the 1.5 million-square-foot Long Island City office tower One Court Square from SL Green Realty, sources told Real Estate Weekly. Among the investors is Joel Schreiber, owner of real estate investment firm Waterbridge Capital, and David Werner, a private real estate investor from Brooklyn.

SL Green took control of the property when it acquired the real estate investment trust Reckson in 2006, REW said. Citibank leases the entire 50-story building. The value of the transaction was not immediately clear, though the New York Post, which previously reported that the building was in contract, estimated it would close for slightly less than $500 million.  [more]

Citibank increased the pressure on disgraced title firm Titleserv in a new court filing alleging that $14 million in the bank’s loan funds controlled by the title firm were missing, the largest such claim since the government opened an investigation in April.

At the same time, Citibank’s filing put other lending and title institutions on notice that it wanted its money back, opening a troubling stage in the litigation in which the aggrieved parties fight one another over recoverable assets.
Citibank’s petition, filed in New York State Supreme Court Aug. 19, is the largest single accusation of lost funds made in a New York court by a former Titleserv business partner since the story broke in April that the national title agency would close its doors. Later that month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the company’s Woodbury, L.I. headquarters. “After the FBI raid, Citi discovered that approximately $14 million of CitiMortgage loan funds that had been transmitted to the Titleserv escrow accounts were missing,” the petition, filed in New York State Supreme Court Aug. 19, says. [more]

Banks are beginning to see the benefits of engaging in short sales,
the New York Times reported, because they expect to receive higher
returns. In New York and New Jersey it has become practically the only
alternative because a court order has forced banks to restructure
their mortgage procedures, halting the foreclosure process. Short
sales are also a less stressful experience for homeowners than
foreclosures, since those take longer and have a significant effect on
the credit rating. New Jersey is the state with the
fourth-highest percentage of delinquent loans. [more]

Aby Rosen’s RFR Holding is looking to unload a 49 percent stake in the landmark Seagram Building at more than $2,000 per square foot. According to the Post, the record price per square foot for an office building was set at $1,585 in 2007 with the sale of 450 Park Avenue, and while prices have rebounded somewhat since the real estate crash, such a price is untested in today’s market. “If you want to test the strength of the market, it’s certainly the building with which to do it,” said Woody Heller, head of capital transactions group at Studley, which is not marketing the building. [more]

Supreme Court judges in New Jersey have ordered six major lenders to prove that their foreclosure practices are legitimate or else be blocked from proceeding with uncontested cases against homeowners in the state, according to the Wall Street Journal. The banks included in the order — Ally Financial, Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, OneWest Bank FSB and Wells Fargo — accounted for almost half of all foreclosure filings in the state this year. [more]

Lender Citibank filed suit last week to recover a nearly $100,000 business line of credit it claims Downtown Islamic center developer Soho Properties has failed to repay. Citibank says Soho Properties and its chairman Sharif El-Gamal have not repaid the loan of $99,489.87, according to a lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court Nov. 24. ”Soho borrowed funds from the business credit account for which payment was never made,” the court filing says. The date of the loan was not provided, nor was the date of when the loan went into default. [more]

Yitzchak Tessler and 1107 Broadway

Citibank has filed for an injunction against the former Toy Building to
block the landlord, Yitzchak Tessler, from [more]