Michael Gross and One57
(Gross photo source: Richard Lewin)

Real estate author Michael Gross is none too pleased that he is being asked to evacuate his home at the Alwyn Court co-ops at 180 West 58th Street once again, thanks to continued issues with the crane at nearby luxury tower One57, as he described in an opinion piece for the New York Times.

Gary Barnett’s Extell Development, the developer of the tower at 157 West 57th Street, offered $1,500 to each household at the Alwyn as compensation for the hassle of evacuating for the second time since Hurricane Sandy, when the crane boom cracked under the force of powerful winds. [more]

The compromised crane at One57

Perhaps one of the most striking images of Hurricane Sandy’s havoc was the crane boom dangling precariously 1,000 feet above Gary Barnett’s One57 site, which forced a weeklong area evacuation. Now, six months after the incident, construction workers will begin to raise a replacement crane to the top of the luxury residential site, the Wall Street Journal reported.  [more]

Gary Barnett and the Carlton House

Given the shortage of new residential development sites in Manhattan, major real estate players such as Gary Barnett’s Extell Development have had to master the intricate art of conversion projects, which come with more than their share of challenges, the New York Times reported.

Barnett, currently Manhattan’s most prolific developer, likes to carefully run the numbers before taking a gamble with a conversion project such as the Helmsley Carlton House, he told the Times.  [more]

Gary Barnett and the Pathmark site at 227 Cherry Street

Gary Barnett’s Extell Development will pay at least $149.5 million for a Lower East Side development site that until recently was home to a Pathmark supermarket, city records first spotted by the Lo-Down confirm. Extell went into contract on the site — located at 227 Cherry Street — in February, when Crain’s reported that the total sale price was $175 million.  [more]

Gary Barnett

Extell Development’s Gary Barnett is selling a vacant building at West 57th Street and expects to get the $80 million he paid for the property two years ago, the New York Post reported.

The developer, who has been streamlining his portfolio by selling off non-core assets, has tapped CBRE’s Darcy Stacom and Bill Shanahan to sell the five-story building at 16-18 West 57th Street. The property, just off Fifth Avenue, has 24,000 square feet and comes with 75,000 square feet of buildable air rights. “[Barnett] was getting unsolicited offers at very strong pricing, so he was tempted,” an Extell spokeswoman told the Post.  [more]

From left: a rendering of the International Gem Tower and Extell president Gary Barnett

Gulaylar Group, a Turkish jeweler and property management company, has purchased the retail condominium on the West 47th Street side of Extell Development’s International Gem Tower, the New York Post reported.

The storefront at the three-story, 12,000-square-foot retail condo, located between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, is valued at $6,000 per square foot. Gulaylar plans to use the space to create a “world-class jewelry exchange,” company’s vice president Mehmet Gulay told the Post. “We have been on 47th Street for 15 years, and we know the street very well,” Gulay said.  [more]

Christine Quinn and Gary Barnett

Christine Quinn is emerging as the favorite mayoral contender among real estate professionals, if the donations to her (still unofficial) campaign are to be believed. And the City Council Speaker has one more industry bigwig to add to her list of supporters: Gary Barnett, the president of Extell Development.

Barnett was the featured guest this afternoon at a monthly luncheon held by the Association of Real Estate Women, where he entertained the crowd of at least 170 people with his take on politics, development trends and Extell’s growing dominance in the industry. [more]

From left: Yorkville area in the UES and Gary Barnett

Gary Barnett’s Extell Development has expanded its holdings on a stretch of the Upper East Side, paying $8.63 million for a mixed-use building at 1685 Third Avenue to landlord Ogrin Associates, on the same day that Extell sold Ogrin a property at 1570 Second Avenue for less than half the purchase price, city records show. The deal appears to be part of a larger move by Extell to acquire, and possibly develop, the stretch of Third Avenue between East 94th and East 95th streets. [more]

Gary Barnett

From the February issue: Ask most people in the industry today and they’ll tell you Gary Barnett is the most aggressive of the large real estate developers in Manhattan. His appetite for risk among his peers is second to none. But given how many projects he has in the works — his firm, Extell Development Company, is currently working on roughly a dozen, including building two of the tallest residential buildings in the Western Hemisphere — and with the level of media attention he gets, you might think he would be more frenetic and in-your-face. [more]

227 Cherry Street

Gary Barnett‘s Extell Development is in contract to purchase a former Pathmark supermarket on the Lower East Side  – as The Real Deal first reported — for about $175 million, Crain’s confirmed today. The plot, at 227 Cherry Street, between Rutgers Street and Pike Slip, is zoned to allow a nearly 1 million-square-foot development, Crain’s said. The building will in all likelihood become a high-rise rental tower with both market rate and affordable apartments, according to Crain’s. [more]