From left: Joseph Moinian, 535-545 Fifth Avenue (building credit: PropertyShark) and Jeff Winick
Even as more retailers appear to be downsizing, Joseph Moinian is working to combine 84,000 square feet of retail space on a full Fifth Avenue block. The New York Post reported that the Moinian Group head is unifying the retail space in the ground floor of the office building at 535-545 Fifth Avenue, between East 44th and East 45th streets. [more]
From top: Winick CEO Jeff Winick, Atlantic COO Michael Stolper and Friedland Realty's Robert Friedland; 3229 Third Avenue (right)
Atlantic Development Group and Winick Realty Group will soon face off in court against a Yonkers, N.Y.-based commercial brokerage that claims they failed to pay half a $250,000 commission for helping lease a Bronx retail space to drugstore chain Duane Reade.
Friedland Realty, which is part of the NAI Global Network and also has a Manhattan office, was allegedly hired by Atlantic to secure a retail tenant for the ground-floor of 3229 Third Avenue, a condominium building that is part of Boricua Village, a 452-unit affordable housing project in Melrose. [more]
The Real Deal has already revealed its picks for the Best of New York City Real Estate
2010 and a list of our top 10 hottest real estate topics of the year is on the way, but first, here’s what you thought. After the jump, there is a list of the 10 most popular Web stories
from TheRealDeal.com in 2010, ranked by number of page views between Jan. 1 and Dec. 26. Also be sure to check out our December issue for the year’s most popular stories
from the print magazine. [more]
From the July issue: “Is Mr. Green coming to the closing?” Years ago, a young lawyer in New York heard that question from a veteran attorney and didn’t know what to make of it. Was he asking about another lawyer, perhaps an investor? It turns out the fellow was talking about a potentially illegal participant in a real estate transaction: cash. While it is by no means against the law to use cash in transactions to pay brokers’ fees or even to buy buildings, it is illegal to pay cash and not report the transaction for income taxes or property transfer taxes.
From the July issue: “Is Mr. Green coming to the closing?” Years ago, a young lawyer in New York heard that question from a veteran attorney and didn’t know what to make of it. Was he asking about another lawyer, perhaps an investor? It turns out the fellow was talking about a potentially illegal participant in a real estate transaction: cash. While it is by no means against the law to use cash in transactions to pay brokers’ fees or even to buy buildings, it is illegal to pay cash and not report the transaction for income taxes or property transfer taxes.
Two former chief officers of Duane Reade have been convicted of fraud after a two-month long trial, in which one of the city’s biggest retail brokerage firms, Winick Realty Group, played a central role, according to the United States Attorney of the Southern District of New York. Former CEO Anthony Cuti and one-time CFO William Tennant were both convicted of conspiracy and securities fraud, in connection with a five-year-long scheme to falsely increase income and lower expenses, while misleading investors. Tennant got a $2.8 million stock gain in 2001 after work [more]
From left: Zelnik and Winick
The prosecution is scheduled to deliver its final statement this morning in the federal securities fraud case against two former Duane Reade executives who are accused of using bogus real estate deals throu [more]
The state agency that licenses real estate brokers opened an investigation this week into two of the city’s top retail brokers based on court testimony from one of them saying that about a decade ago they accepted a $ [more]
505 Eighth Avenue and Reid Weingarten (source: PropertyShark)One or more of the allegedly bogus real estate deals that former Duane Reade executives structured with affiliates of retail brokerage Winick Realty Group was in fact a legitimate transaction, according to recent testimony in a federal trial in Lower Manhattan.
The revelation is a minor setback for the prosecution, which says dozens of complex leasing transactions, most involving companies controlled by Winick Realty CEO Jeff Winick, were used to artificially pump up earnings through virtually worthless transactions.
The government claims the leasing transactions were generally shams without a legitimate economic purpose, structured only to boost Duane Reade’s bottom line. [more]
From the May issue: Drugstore chain Duane Reade had a problem: A competitor was sniffing around a large space across the street from one of its best Midtown locations on Sixth Avenue near West 57th Street. Officials at the store enlisted its broker, Winick Realty Group, to take care of the situation.
Several months later, not only had the competitor disappeared, but Duane Reade had taken that site at 100 West 57th Street for itself.
That’s partly thanks to Winick Realty’s founder and CEO, Jeff Winick, who used back channels to help secure the site for the drugstore. Winick’s aggressive, take-no-prisoners style seems to win him accolades from clients but has created fierce enmity among his competition.
That style has been on full display for the last few weeks in a federal courtroom in Lower Manhattan, where two former Duane Reade executives are on trial for fraudulently pumping up earnings reports, partly through allegedly bogus real estate transactions involving Winick. [more]
