The city is expected to announce a new wave of bedbug-inspired building regulations today in an effort to shift the responsibility to landlords in the war on bedbugs, the Post reported. The new rules, effective immediately, require building owners to inspect and treat apartments situated next to, above and below any bedbug-infested unit in addition to notifying tenants of their plans. If landlords repeatedly fail to comply, they’ll have to get a licensed exterminator to prove their buildings are bedbug-free with a sworn affidavit or else face fines from the city’s Environmental Control Board. [more]

Douglas Durst, chairman of Durst Fetner Residential, and landlord Baruch Singer

A Durst Organization affiliate, Durst Fetner Residential, is expected to sell a $32.5 million note on a stalled 1 million-square-foot residential development site on the East River in Long Island City to the property’s owner. The sale is a signal that the long-delayed project on the site of the East River Tennis Center, first dreamed of in the 1970s, is finally going forward. But it would be a blow to Durst Fetner’s hopes to develop the site. Durst Fetner, a residential development company, bought the note on the six-acre, vacant site at 44-02 Vernon Boulevard in November 2009 from a Texas bank, one of the site’s developers Marshall Weisman said. Durst Fetner purchased the note at a discount, Durst Organiziation spokesperson Jordan Barowitz said. He would not divulge the price.

Weisman, managing member of the New Jersey-based property owner Vernon Realty Holding, said he expects to close on the note purchase in the first or second week in March, and must pay the full face value of $32.5 million. [more]

Photos of 87 Chambers Street. From left: Chambers Street side, interior, Reade Street side, exterior wall

The owner of a 19th century Tribeca loft building at 87 Chambers Street
that partially collapsed this spring filed for a full demolition permit
to raze the remaining portion of the structure, the city Department of
Buildings Web site shows. The application by 87 Chambers LLC to tear down the remaining half of
the five-story building was filed Dec. 24, city records show. A permit
for a new, eight-story hotel or dormitory building for the parcel
between Broadway and Church Street was approved in August, city records
reveal. A portion of the western half of the building collapsed at about 6:15
a.m. on April 30 with a rumble and cloud of dust. 
A visit to the site today reveals that an approximately 25-foot wide,
five-story building extending from Reade Street to Chambers Street
still remains standing, and inside, steel beams provide support. It is
that portion that will be demolished upon approval of the permit. [more]

Embattled developer Harry Jeremias is facing a new round of litigation for allegedly defaulting on $48 million in loans from Bank of America, used to purchase and renovate a 13-story office tower at 216 West 18th Street. Jeremias, founder of the Harch Group, allegedly defaulted on the loans after the project encountered months of construction delays, multiple stop-work orders from the Department of Buildings and deteriorating safety conditions at the site, according to documents filed Oct. 22 in New York State Supreme Court. Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, a firm that services the loan on behalf of Bank of America, is asking for a court-appointed receiver, and warning that the building could lose its existing base of tenants without “competent” supervision of the project. [more]