Brown Harris Stevens’ Carol Cohen and 737 Park Avenue

The lawsuit filed against former Corcoran Group star broker and now Brown Harris Stevens senior vice president Carol Cohen, which led to her reported dismissal from Corcoran at the close of 2010, has been thrown out, according to documents filed by the New York state Supreme court earlier this month.

The lawsuit, filed by Katz 737 Corp., the landlord at Cohen and her husband Lester Cohen’s apartment building, in 2010, alleges that the couple had repeatedly lied about their income on state forms in order to prevent a rent increase at their $3,060 per month apartment at 737 Park Avenue, between 71st and 72nd streets. The landlord claimed that they had reported their combined income as being less than $175,000 per year to avoid a rent hike at the unit, which they had lived in since 1989.

The dismissal rendered those claims insufficient to prosecute. [more]

Developer Harry Macklowe has triumphed in a legal battle this week with investor Carl Icahn over $60 million Icahn claimed Macklowe owed him relating to an acquisition agreement back in 2006.

According to Reuters, Icahn filed suit in New York state Supreme Court against Macklowe after he allegedly backed out of a joint bid with Icahn for Reckson Real Estate Investment Trust. Icahn claimed that the contract between Icahn’s Meadow Star and Macklowe’s WH Rome Partners required that Macklowe deposit $600 million in a joint account in November 2006, during the time that the partnership was bidding for the REIT. Macklowe didn’t deposit the funds, Icahn argued, and as such owed Icahn $60 million under the contract’s failure-to-deposit provision. [more]

From left: CIM Group founders Avi Shemesh, Richard Ressler and Shaul Kuba and the Drake Hotel

The site of the former Drake Hotel, recently named the most valuable development lot in the city, will be home to a 1,300-foot tall residential tower, the largest in the city.

According to the Wall Street Journal, CIM Group, which acquired the site for $305 million last year, and Harry Macklowe plan to erect a slim condominium and retail complex designed by Uruguayan-born architect Rafael Vinoly with 128 units and 12-foot high ceilings. The $1 billion project, at 432 Park Avenue near 56th Street, includes a 5,000-square-foot driveway, golf training facilities and private dining and screening rooms. Macklowe has no equity in the project but has remained involved in the decision making. [more]

A Russian developer is accusing the powerful California real estate investment firm CIM Group of breaking a verbal agreement to work together to build on a vacant site at 33rd Street and Madison Avenue, and instead swooping in to buy the $29 million mortgage and foreclose on it, a new lawsuit filed yesterday in New York State Supreme Court says.

NMP-Group, controlled by Russian developer Natalia Pirogova, says in the suit that CIM Group used privileged information to snap up the note in August from lender Garrison Investment Group despite making promises in March 2011 to work with NMP in a joint venture to build a mixed-use tower at the site, at 172-176 Madison Avenue. [more]

Howard Michaels in his office at 560 Lexington Avenue last month.From the October issue: Thirty-four years ago, Howard Michaels was knocking on doors in the 2.3 million-square-foot Starrett-Lehigh office building, hawking copy machines for the 3M Company.

“I was making bupkis,” Michaels recalled.

Those days are undoubtedly over. In 2004, he arranged a $219 million recapitalization of that same building, earning a seven-figure commission for his company, a real estate investment advisory firm known as the Carlton Group.

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Harry Macklowe and 737 Park Avenue

Harry Macklowe’s development firm that is primed to carry out the $360 million condominium conversion of the pre-war apartment building at 737 Park Avenue, filed its first lawsuit related to the building this week, claiming a married couple living in a market-rate apartment is refusing to leave even though their lease expired last month. Macklowe’s company for the project, 737 Park Avenue Acquisition, filed the lawsuit Tuesday in New York State Supreme Court against Barry and Joan Shalov, seeking an order from the judge to force them out of the 21-story Lenox Hill building, at the corner of 71st Street, despite their desire to stay. Condo conversion experts predicted that it would not be easy converting the occupied building, with 103 apartments. The fact that Macklowe had to resort to a lawsuit to remove market-rate tenants living with an expired lease — presumably with no rights to stay — only underscores the potential challenges. [more]

New York City real estate developer William Macklowe appeared on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop” today (see video) to talk about a new investment fund his eponymous company William Macklowe Company has created with Grove International Partners. The fund, Macklowe said, is a vehicle with the capacity to raise up to $1.5 billion in acquisition capital.

While “there’s a limited supply in the acquisition pipeline,” Macklowe said, his firm is on the lookout for commercial and residential properties exclusively in Manhattan. The company is biding its time, he said, waiting to see how the market settles.

The developer closed on his first building in January since the launch of his firm in 2010. [more]

From the September issue: In its eight years of publication, The Real Deal has covered the real estate industry in a city that’s been transformed by a massive building boom, was crippled by the subsequent bust, and is now in the midst of a tentative recovery.
The compendium of stories we’ve written runs the gamut from the record-setting building and apartment purchases during the boom, to the toppling of mega-developers during the bust, to new entrepreneurs trying to get into the real estate game during today’s fragile recovery. This month, for the anniversary of our 100th issue, we bring you some of the most compelling stories we’ve tracked in these pages, many of which have unfolded and evolved over time, much as the magazine itself has. And watch the video below to see The Real Deal Publisher Amir Korangy talk about the special process for creating the unique 100th issue cover.
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Developer Harry Macklowe and 737 Park Avenue

The London-based Children’s Investment Fund inked its first New York City real estate investment this month, providing $250 million in first mortgages for Macklowe Properties’ condominium conversion of the luxury apartment building 737 Park Avenue in Lenox Hill.

The fund, run by low-key hedge fund manager Christopher Hohn, makes investments in a wide range of industries globally, and gives a portion of its profits to children’s charities around the world.

“It is the first direct real estate investment we have made in New York,” Martin Frass-Ehrfeld, a partner with the fund, said. It is not the first in the United States, however.  [more]

From left: Harry Macklowe, 737 Park Avenue and 150 East 72nd StreetDeveloper Harry Macklowe’s firm Macklowe Properties filed plans with Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office to convert rental buildings at 737 Park Avenue and 150 East 72nd Street into condominiums, Bloomberg News reported. If the offering plan is approved by July 2012, closings could begin at the Upper East Side properties by late 2012 or 2013.
“The expectation is that we probably will be out of the recession by then and the economy will be booming and it will just be the right time to start selling apartments,” said Stuart Saft, head of the real estate group at Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP, who drafted the plans for Macklowe. [more]