From left: Gary Barnett, 220 Central Park South and Steven Roth

Developers Steven Roth and Gary Barnett are set to face off at 220 Central Park South, a 1950s-era apartment building that Roth’s Vornado Realty Trust has been planning to demolish and replace with a 41-story, $400 million condominium tower for more than five years. But Barnett, president of the increasingly powerful Extell Development, is the leaseholder on the parking garage below, and so far he’s refusing to be bought out, according to the Wall Street Journal. In December, Vornado agreed to pay $40 million to buy out the remaining 26 rent-regulated tenants at the 124-unit building, which it acquired with the Clarett Group for $131 million in 2005. [more]

Gary Barnett and 211 East 46th Street (building photo source: PropertyShark)

Gary Barnett’s Extell Development and Cammeby’s International is putting up for a sale a three-story
office space for $625 per square foot at the site of a 30-floor converted
condo tower in Turtle Bay .
The office condo, at 211 East 46th Street office, is located on the third to
fifth floors of the tower, which can be acquired as three separate units
measuring 9,800 square feet, or one large 29,000-square-foot space.
“The floors had been occupied by a tenant, and now that tenant is moving
out and they’re going to sell these three floors,” said Michael Rudder,
principal at Manhattan-based Rudder Property, which is listing the
property. [more]

Even as the land sales market has improved in Manhattan overall, the number of developers actively trying to put together sites remains just a handful, far fewer than during the boom. One of the city’s leading professionals in the business, Dov Hertz, an executive vice president at Gary Barnett’s Extell Development, spoke with Insights from The Real Deal about the current number of deals he believed are underway in Manhattan, and about the time someone backed out of a deal to sell air rights.

Hertz leads the acquisitions arm of Extell, one of the most prolific residential developers in the city. He has led or had a hand in Extell’s major assemblages, including two projects still under development, the 34-story International Gem Tower at 50 West 47th Street and the 74-story Carnegie57, at 157 West 57th Street, spanning the mid-block between Sixth and Seventh avenues and 57th and 58th streets. He has also put together sites for completed residential towers, including the 110-unit Lucida, at 151 East 85th Street; the Ariel East and West; and the 22-unit 535 West End Avenue.

In addition, Robert Knakal, chairman of investment brokerage Massey Knakal Realty Services, weighs in on how many sites are being assembled now, and where they are located. [more]

From the March issue: Tourism is back, and lenders are eyeing hotels more favorably as a result. In 2010, a record 48.7 million visitors traveled to New York City. These visitors spent approximately $31 billion during their visits to the Big Apple, according to estimates by NYC & Company, the city’s official marketing and tourism organization. To catch some of those tourist dollars, more than 36 hotels opened in New York last year. In addition, there are at least 26 new hotels in line for construction. Concurrently, financing for the hospitality asset class — which was in the doghouse with lenders just a few years ago, ranking as their least favored sector — has improved for both hotel owners and developers. [more]

The Aldyn

From the March issue: The 40-story Aldyn is the latest in a wall of luxury towers, and the fourth by Extell Development, to sprout up on Riverside Boulevard in the West 60s.

This largely glass building, however, is a condo-rental hybrid — an option that, as The Real Deal has reported, has become increasing popular for developers since the economy soured because it helps them hedge against the uncertain sales market. The Related Companies has a hybrid project at 440 West 42nd Street, and J.D. Carlisle Development Corp. has the Beatrice/Eventi combination on 29th Street.

But the hybrid model is a first for Gary Barnett’s Extell, which has also built the Avery and the Rushmore, both condos, and the Ashley, a rental, on this patch of Riverside South, a site extending from 59th to 72nd streets. [more]

The Real Deal has had an action-packed schedule. We hit up the Charity: Water event at 123 East 10th Street, the largest and priciest home available in the East Village, hosted by Rubicon Property. We stopped by Core’s cocktail party on the 17th floor of 812 Fifth Avenue, which was recently redesigned by architect Joseph Dirand. We also dropped by the Griffin Court condominium in Hell’s Kitchen, where Gumley Haft Kleier was hosting a viewing party of this week’s HGTV’s realty reality show “Selling New York.” Meanwhile, back at the office we were letting our fingers do the walking and got some fun nuggets. Click here for more. [more]

The Rushmore and violinist Pinchas ZukermanPinchas Zukerman, a world-renown violinist and a teacher at the Manhattan School of Music, has gone into contract on a three-bedroom unit at the Rushmore condominium, with his wife, cellist Amanda Zukerman, the New York Times reported. The asking price for the 1,712-square-foot 23rd-floor apartment, at 80 Riverside Boulevard, was $2.734 million. The developers, Extell Development Company, who are involved in a $16 million escrow dispute at the building, would not disclose how much Zukerman paid. [more]

Rushmore and Extell’s Gary BarnettLawyers for Extell Development and Carlyle Realty Partners, which operate together as CRP/ Extell, admitted to the state attorney general that they had no evidence to back up claims that a typographical error led to a $16 million escrow dispute at the Rushmore condominium, according to new documents filed in New York State Supreme Court. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed the evidence in response to an October 2010 suit by CRP/Extell that claimed the previous AG, Andrew Cuomo, erred in his April 2010 decision to order the Rushmore developer to refund deposits to 41individual buyers at the condo, at 80 Riverside Boulevard. [more]

Alex Rodriguez and the Rushmore

Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez has inked a deal to buy a four-bedroom, full-floor spread at Extell Development’s Upper West Side condominium, the Rushmore. According to the Wall Street Journal, Rodriguez, who has been renting a $30,000-a-month condo at 15 Central Park West and has been spotted apartment and townhouse hunting all over town in recent months, will pay between $5.5 million and $6 million for his new digs. Given that a Rushmore apartment on a higher floor recently sold for more than that, the Journal suggested that it’s possible Rodriguez got a so-called “celebrity discount,” though he did pay more than the buyer of a similar apartment one year ago. [more]

The steel for Extell Development’s International Gem Tower at 44 West 47th Street is set to rise the last week of March or the first week of April, Extell’s Raizy Haas told the Post. The $750 million, 34-story condominium tower, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, had its design by Skidmore Owings & Merrill unveiled nearly four years ago. But since the October 2008 market crash badly hurt the diamond industry, progress on the tower has been delayed. Now, Extell and Tishman Construction have just turned on their public information hotline as work begins, giving details on trenching, sandblasting and related activities for this month and next. Comments

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