Donald Trump and Ferry Point Park

Critics have slammed the deal the city reached with Donald Trump for a championship golf course in the Bronx that doesn’t require the developer to pay any licensing for four years, but the New York Times noted that Trump and his Trump Golf company aren’t guaranteed to profit off the apparently sweet deal.

The city will spend more than $180 million to build the municipal course — mostly on taxpayers’ dimes — and leave Trump Golf to build only a $10 million clubhouse and operate the facility. [more]

New York real estate faced a whirlwind year in 2011, and numerous contenders surfaced when The Real Deal sat down to pick our favorite stories of the year.

There was the limping recovery of the residential sales market, coupled with several standout deals and the runaway revival of the rental market. Developers snapped up distressed properties, such as One Madison Park, while other stalled projects like the Azure cond-op tower came back to life. [more]

Riverside South, the 77-acre former rail yard-turned condominiums between 59th and 72nd streets, is seeing an uptick in sales, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The Aldyn, at 63rd Street and West End Avenue, is 50 percent sold, and the Rushmore, at Riverside Boulevard and 64th Street, is 90 percent sold, the Journal said. Both buildings are around 40 stories. In the third quarter of 2011 the average price for condominiums on Riverside Drive rose 19 percent, the Journal said, to $1,470 per square foot.
[more]

From left: Donald Trump, president of the Trump Organization, Dottie Herman, president of Prudential Douglas Elliman, Elizabeth Stribling, president of Stribling & Associates, Stuart Saft, chairman of Dewey & LeBoeuf’s global real estate department, and Frederick Peters, president of Warburg Realty Partnership, and Lois Weiss, real estate columnist for the New York Post

Compiled by Lauren Elkies

In the wake of Sandy Weill’s reported $88 million sale of his 15 Central Park West penthouse, The Real Deal wanted to touch base and see if real estate executives had any last minute predictions for the New Year since speaking with the magazine for the December residential market report.

Dottie Herman, president of Prudential Douglas Elliman, and Frederick Peters, president of Warburg Realty Partnership, said to expect 2012 to be a bit of a repeat of 2011, while developer Donald Trump said “really good real estate will have excess value.” Elizabeth Stribling, president of Stribling & Associates, predicts a “continuing strong demand for new condominium offerings all over town,” while Stuart Saft, chairman of Dewey & LeBoeuf’s global real estate department, said “the euro will continue to be in trouble causing a flight to safety to the U.S. and particularly New York City, so New York City properties will trade at even lower cap rates.” Meanwhile, Citi Habitats President Gary Malin and Halstead Property Development Marketing President Stephen Kliegerman recently told amNY that 2012 would bring more development and fewer amenities to New York City’s real estate market. [more]

From left: Robert Knakal and Jeff Sutton From the December issue: Sometimes, the Penn is mightier than the sword — at least when it comes to New York City’s real estate elite. The roster of “Wharton Mafia” — those who have graduated from the real estate program at the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania — is long and illustrious.

The school — which now has a center named for billionaire investor Sam Zell and his late business partner — has churned out heavyweight grads like Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, William Mack, Richard Mack, Jeff Sutton, Andrew Isikoff, Jeff Blau, Robert Knakal, Andrew Mathias, David Brause and Ara Hovnanian.

The schooling can prove professionally transformative. For every heir like Trump or Mack who gains some polish, there are others with fewer — if any — connections who gain the New York real estate world partly through Wharton. [more]

Trump’s new book[Updated 11:55 a.m. on Dec. 6, 2011] The Donald has a lot to say in his latest book, out today. In between moderating debates for Fox News, taking gold bars as a deposit at 40 Wall Street, mulling a run for office and meeting with Republican presidential nominee hopefuls (as he did today with Newt Gingrich), Trump penned another political book: “Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again.”

In the latest advice volume, the developer of real estate from Israel to Florida, suggests that America’s problems are the result of President Barack Obama not loving America enough, that the only way to fix the deficit is to take Iraqi oil by force, and that Trump himself is worth a total of $7 billion, a disputed figure. [more]

One does not usually speak of commercial real estate in terms of the miraculous, but as regards the Apple’s iconic flagship on Fifth Avenue between 58th and 59th streets — which just got an overhaul of its façade– the term is almost appropriate. For 40 years prior to Apple’s arrival in New York City in 2007, this area was a commercial disaster, first as a sunken pit whose varied businesses enticed few to descend, then, in developer Donald Trump’s reworking, as a marble-encased hole in the ground that no business could be induced to lease.

Only a business founded on the notion of “thinking outside the box” could possibly make a go of it, and no business fits that description better than Apple. [more]

Developer Donald Trump had some advice for the Occupy Wall Street protesters in an interview with Sean Hannity that appeared on Fox News last night (see video above).

“If I could speak to that group,” he said, jokingly admitting he’s probably not the person they’d want to hear from, “I’d say, ‘Folks, let’s go. Let’s hop on the train, let’s hop on the planes — we’re going down to Washington.’”

That answer was prompted in part by Hannity, who showed no restraint in expressing his dismay for the Obama administration’s policy towards the banks.

But earlier in the interview, Trump admitted banks “have not been treating people properly.” [more]

Donald Trump and Republican presidential candidate
Michele Bachmann

Developer Donald Trump joined Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann on a conference call with her supporters last night, though Bachmann made clear his participation was not an endorsement of her, the New York Times reported.

“He’s on the call because he’s admired,” she told what she said were 200,000 participants on the call.

In response to a question from a listener named Ralph from California on whether he would consider a Trump-Bachmann or Bachmann-Trump presidential ticket, The Donald did not answer directly. “I don’t think that’s why we’re here tonight,’’ he said, adding, “I’ve gotten to know Michele very well’’ and she is “a far cry from what we have in the White House.’’
[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]