Aby Rosen and a rendering of the proposed hotel

Foreclosure is nearing on Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs’ 610 Lexington Avenue development site, where they and their partners had planned to build a Shangri-La hotel tower. According to Crain’s, the group has failed in their an attempt to re-argue a case they had lost, which clears the way for lenders ING Real Estate Finance and Swedbank AB to foreclose. In that case, they had argued that their obligation to repay their $130 million-plus loan should be suspended until market conditions improve, and alleged a conflict of interest between lender ING and ING Clarion, which was advising one of their development partners. [more]

Financing for New York City real estate projects is back. Of the top 35 deals done in the last 12 months, 24 were refinancing and nine were new loans taken out of acquisitions, according to Crain’s. The largest deal was an $800 million refinancing of 245 Park Avenue, between 46th and 47th streets, for which Brookfield Asset Management and ING Clarion tapped the Bank of China in September 2010. It was followed closely by Boston Properties’ $700 million loan from MetLife for the Citigroup Center at 153 East 53rd Street, between Third and Lexington avenues, in March 2011, and a $650 million refinancing of One Bryant Park between 42nd and 43rd streets in June last year by Bank of America. [more]

Private real estate management firm ING Clarion Partners bought the 42-unit rental building at 44 Berry Street in Williamsburg for $27 million, the firm said in a statement today.

The 54,000-square-foot, six-story former quinine factory building was developed by Cayuga Capital Management. The fully-leased building includes six retail spaces on the ground floor.

The building located at the corner of North 11th and Berry streets, one block from McCarren Park, was constructed in 1919. TRD Comments

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From left: TIAA-CREF’s 685 Third Avenue, GGP’s South Street Seaport, RREEF’s 15 Madison Square North

ProLogis, the Denver, Co.-based public REIT with 479.7 million square feet of industrial space globally, is the top U.S. commercial property owner, according to a new survey from Businessweek.com. Coming in a distant second was mall owner Simon Property Group, which has 264 million square feet. (Simon’s bankrupt rival, General Growth Properties, was ranked fifth with 200 million square feet). [more]

From left: Kevin Davis, partner at Area Property Partners; Mason Sleeper, principal with the real estate investment firm Praedium Group; Tim Wang, vice president at ING Clarion

The percent of residential apartment dwellers in the city who are not paying their rent has as much as quadrupled since the market weakened last year, industry leaders on a panel discussing multi-family properties said today.

“Collections, especially in New York City, have become more of an issue,” said Mark Stern, senior vice president at Waterton Residential, a Chicago-based building owner and operator. His firm is planning on making acquisitions in New York City.

“[They are] going from the 5 percent range to now 10 or 20 percent in collections, which makes a difference on the bottom line,” he said.

Mason Sleeper, a principal with the real estate investment firm Praedium Group, said he has seen a similar distress in the market.

“You have your collection issue which is increasingly creeping up to becoming a little bit of a problem,” he said.

They were speaking on a panel that also included Kevin Davis, partner of Area Property Partners; Tim Wang, vice president at ING Clarion and Max Herzog, senior vice president at CB Richard Ellis. The panel, moderated by Mike Kelly, president of Caldera Asset Management, was part of a day-long forum covering multi-family real estate organized by GreenPearl. [more]