550 Washington Street
City investor and philanthropist Eugene Grant has agreed to sell his controlling 50.1 percent stake in the Meatpacking District’s massive former freight facility, known as St. John’s Center, to an investor group that owns the other 49.9 percent, in a deal that was rushed forward due to concerns over the fiscal cliff, the New York Post reported. The deal with Fortress Investment Group, Atlas Capital Group and Westbrook Partners is worth approximately $250 million. [more]
Peter Briger, Jr. and the apartment at 101 Central Park West
Peter Briger, Jr., the billionaire co-chairman of New York-based investment management firm Fortress Investment Group, has sold his five-bedroom, six-bathroom co-op at 101 Central Park West for $18.75 million, according to public records filed with the city today.
Briger, a former Goldman Sachs executive who joined Fortress in 2002, taking the title of co-chairman in 2009, listed the unit for sale with Dennis Cusack and Ric Swezey of Town Residential. Swezey has since departed Town and returned to the Corcoran Group. The spread, which is a combination of two units on the 14th and 15th floors, was listed at $23.55 million. [more]
Nine real estate investment trusts have filed to sell approximately $2.5 billion in shares since the beginning of the year, the most significant volume of deals since 2009, the Wall Street Journal reported, and the sales aren’t over yet. A $600 million offering from Pacific Investment Management and a $500 million deal by a unit of hedge fund Fortress Investment Group are both slated for the coming months.
Once one of the most desirable commodities on the stock market, reviews by the Securities and Exchange Commission could turn the tide for REITS, meaning they’ll be less likely to go public in the future.
The SEC is distinguishing between REITs that manage and operate real estate and those that invest in real estate securities, the Journal said…. [more]
Three weeks ago, the Marketing Directors unveiled the 10 penthouses on the 56th and 57th floors of the Sheffield, and The Real Deal got a sneak peek at the units and their impressive views — just as the overcast weather cleared — today (see photos above). Asking prices for the two- and three-bedroom penthouses at the condominium conversion at 322 West 57th Street range from $2.55 million to $5.25 million for a unit overlooking Central Park, and apparently buyers won’t have much room for negotiation.
“We’re hardly open to any negotiations on those units — being that they are the crown jewels of the building,” Jacqueline Urgo, president of the Marketing Directors, said. “We’re going to hold out for the best prices.”
… [more]
Bob Novogratz and wife Cortney, the developing duo from Bravo’s “9 by Design” reality show, are designing Cabana, the
Jersey Shore’s second boutique hotel, the Post reported. Bob is the brother of billionaire Mike Novogratz, the co-founder and president of Fortress Investment Group. The couple also designed Bungalow, Jersey’s first boutique beach hotel, which opened last summer. Their company, Sixx Design, just signed on to design a 48-room boutique hotel in the Mexican resort town of Punta Mita, their first project outside of the United States, slated to open on Thanksgiving 2011. [Post]
… [more]
Bob Novogratz and wife Cortney, the developing duo from Bravo’s “9 by Design” reality show, are designing Cabana, the
Jersey Shore’s second boutique hotel, the Post reported. Bob is the brother of billionaire Mike Novogratz, the co-founder and president of Fortress Investment Group. The couple also designed Bungalow, Jersey’s first boutique beach hotel, which opened last summer. Their company, Sixx Design, just signed on to design a 48-room boutique hotel in the Mexican resort town of Punta Mita, their first project outside of the United States, slated to open on Thanksgiving 2011. [Post]
… [more]
The luxury condos at Sheffield57 are back on the market at an average of 25 percent off their boom-time asking prices, according to the Wall Street Journal. The 57-story former rental tower at 322 West 57th Street, purchased for a record $418 million in 2005 by a group of investors led by embattled developer Kent Swig, is now widely considered one of the most troubled condo conversions in New York City history. In a foreclosure auction last year, Swig lost the project to Fortress Investment Group, which has since brought in new managers and put the condos back up for sale at an average of $1,500 per square foot. Swig’s group had been asking $2,100 per square foot for the homes at their initial sales launch. [WSJ]
… [more]
After financier Robert Kramer and his wife, Susan, purchased a three-bedroom co-op unit at 993 Park Avenue for $3.95 million in 2000, they gut-renovated the home and redid the floor plan.
The renovation involved tearing down the walls of several small staff rooms to open up the kitchen and family rooms, putting in a new air conditioning system and expanding the master bedroom suite, according to the agent now charged with reselling the place.
It must have been quite the job for Kramer, a Fortress Investment Group alum who went on to co-found private investment firm Altitude Capital Partners, and his wife, because the eighth-floor apartment, unit 8BC, hit the market today for $9.25 million — more than twice what the couple paid for it 10 years ago.
“Very little was untouched” in the rehab, said listing agent S. Jean Meisel of Brown Harris Stevens, who also had the listing the last time around, when the Kramers bought it. Meisel would neither confirm nor deny that the Kramers own the co-op, but property records show that unit 8BC does, indeed, belong to the couple.
The Kramers were not immediately available for comment.
Interior pictures are not yet available and Meisel did not know the square footage of the apartment, so for the unconvinced, she promises the new, 140-square-foot closet — one of the largest she’s ever seen in a master bedroom — is worth raving about. “It would have been wonderful for ‘Sex and the City,’” she said. … [more]
The 5,500-square-foot penthouse at 1 Central Park West, sold for $33 million, including closing costs, to financier Taek Jho Low, has taken its spot as the priciest single-unit residential foreclosure sale ever in New York City, the Post reported. Donald Trump purchased the apartment in 1997 for $5 million and flipped it one year later to film producer Vittorio Ceechi Gori for $10.4 million. Gori tried to renovate place, but was foreclosed upon in 2008, with as much as $30 million in debt to lender Fortress Investment Group, plus $62,000 to the condo board and $69,000 in back taxes. The apartment was sold for $18 million at auction last July to a Russian family who wound up famously walking away from their $1.8 million deposit after discovering the high costs of renovation. [Post] … [more]
Yair Levy and Park Columbus condominium at 101 West 87th Street on the corner of Columbus AvenueGarrison Special Opportunities Fund, a Manhattan-based hedge fund, alleges that developer Yair Levy threw his stalled Park Columbus condominium project at 101 West 87th Street into Chapter 11 the night before a scheduled Sept. 10 auction to foreclose on a defaulted $20 million mezzanine loan, according to a U.S. Bankruptcy Court filing obtained by The Real Deal. On Sept. 8, Levy filed to get a temporary restraining order in New York State Supreme Court blocking the foreclosure auction. Garrison officials allege in the filing that Levy failed to come up with a $20 million deposit the following day as demanded by Judge James Yates, in order to block the sale. After failing to produce the deposit, the filing alleges that Levy threw his YL West 87th Street Holdings entity into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, one night before the scheduled Sept. 10 auction. Garrison officials called the bankruptcy filing “a sham” and urged a U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge to lift an automatic “stay,” allowing it to move forward with the foreclosure auction, which would effectively sell the stalled project to a new owner…. [more]
For NYC real estate updates provide email below
