From left: The entrance to Eurohyop’s NYC offices and 9 MetroTech Center (building credit: PropertyShark)As European banks mitigate risk amid the debt crisis that’s consumed the continent, many have stopped lending for commercial real estate projects in the U.S., Reuters reported. The total amount of money European banks loaned to the sector has fallen by 31 percent in the last two years, according to Trepp, and more banks have announced they would reduce U.S. property loans.

While European real estate lending is not widespread in much of the United States, it is crucial in big cities like New York. Forest City Ratner was directly affected by this trend in October, when German bank Eurohypo suddenly dropped out of serious negotiations to provide a $65 million loan for 9 MetroTech in Brooklyn. [more]

Developer Jeff Hirschfeld of Hirschfeld Properties has filed suit against German-based lender Eurohypo and Area Property Partners, alleging they sabotaged his multi-million dollar upgrade of a South Jersey residential property after his joint-venture partner, a unit of Dubai World, ran into financial trouble.

Hirschfeld teamed up with Dubai Investment Group in 2008 to buy the former Landmark Apartments, a 544-unit complex at 1900 Frontage Road in Cherry Hill, N.J., for $71.3 million.

In the Feb. 25 lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court, Hirschfeld alleges the lenders stopped funding the project after learning of Dubai World’s financial crisis and then foreclosed on the deal. [more]

Fred Harris, vice president at AvalonBay Communities, which is constructing its first Brooklyn project, a 631-unit tower on Gold Street in Fort Greene.

From the March issue: A handful of major real estate management and development firms that have long avoided Brooklyn — even as housing prices in the borough shot up and brokerages rushed in — are finally venturing across the river.

The reasons are twofold. First, new high-rise, high-end construction in Brooklyn fits their business model. And second, values of these new Brooklyn buildings appear to have tumbled further and faster than their Manhattan counterparts, according to brokers and developers. “Developers are looking for opportunities, 100 percent,” said David Maundrell, a Dumbo resident and the president of aptsandlofts.com, a brokerage with a Brooklyn focus. “But they are willing to do that because there is a viable market here. It’s become a destination as opposed to an afterthought for Manhattanites who want a cheaper place.”

Jamestown Properties is one of the developers that recently upped its bet on the borough. In early 2007, the firm had a 60 percent equity stake in be@Schermerhorn, a troubled condo in Downtown Brooklyn, which was developed by SDS Procida and saw construction and sales suspended last year. But in December, Jamestown bought the balance of the mortgage from a consortium of banks. The consortium had originally lent $100 million to SDS Procida.