Stephen Ross, founder, chairman & CEO of the Related Companies, and Pamela Liebman, CEO of the Corcoran Group, turned out at last night’s Stroock & Stroock & Lavan real estate reception at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in the Time Warner Center (see photos above). In the Mandarin ballroom, with its breathtaking view of Central Park, Columbus
Circle and the East Side of Manhattan, top real estate executives, lawyers
and others networked with each other over drinks and food.
Others spotted were Joseph Moinian, CEO of the Moinian Group, and Leonard Boxer, chairman of
Stroock’s real estate practice. — Miranda Neubauer [more]

Joe Moinian and 3 Columbus CircleAfter a tumultuous few years, Joseph Moinian‘s brick office tower at 3 Columbus Circle is finally ready to display the results of a major makeover, Crain’s reported.

Moinian invested $100 million to transform the building, which was previously home to Newsweek. It has a new all-glass façade, a new roof and the lobby has been moved from West 57th Street to Broadway, Crain’s said.
“Everything that could be touched has been touched,” said Steve Durels, the head of leasing for SL Green Realty, which swooped in to bail out Moinian in return for a 49 percent equity stake after he defaulted on a $250 million loan at the property. [more]

From left: Stuart Saft and the W Downtown Hotel

A U.S. District Court judge ruled against Joseph Moinian’s Moinian Group in a closely watched escrow dispute with buyers at the W New York Downtown Hotel and Residences, a decision that lawyers say further establishes the applicability of the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act in New York condominium sales.

Judge Robert Patterson rejected a motion to dismiss the case by the Moinian Group, which developed the 217-unit hotel and condo at 123 Washington Street, and argued that the federal ILSA law does not apply to condos, but was designed to protect consumers against fraudulent land sales. [more]

Colorado-based UDR announced today that it entered a “definitive agreement” to acquire Dwell 95, a 507-unit Financial District apartment complex owned by the Moinian Group, for $325 million. The deal brings the company closer to its planned $1.8 billion investment in New York City multi-family properties.

Located at 95 Wall Street, the 22-story building once served as JPMorgan’s headquarters before Joseph Moinian’s Moinian Group converted it into luxury rentals.

It is one block east of 10 Hanover Square, a 493-unit apartment building UDR acquired for $261 million in April, which marked the firm’s first foray into the New York City market despite owning 60,000 units nationwide. In July the company spent $581 million on multi-family acquisitions in the city, closing on a $443 million purchase of the 706-unit Rivergate complex in Murray Hill and paying $138 million for the 210-unit 21 Chelsea.
– Adam Fusfeld [more]

3 Columbus CircleFrom the July issue: Late last year, an attorney for developer Joseph Moinian handed Manhattan’s County Clerk a cashier’s check in the stunning amount of $258,550,838.52. It was drawn from the bank account of SL Green Realty, Moinian’s partner at 3 Columbus Circle, and delivered as a show of good faith. The so-called tender offer was designed to short-circuit litigation among three heavyweight Manhattan office landlords.
But the tender — believed to be by far the largest ever deposited with the Clerk’s office — failed in its immediate goal to end the now-famous saga over the fate of 3 Columbus. [more]

From left: Lansco Corp. agents Robin Abrams, Howard Dolch and Lisa RosenthalFrom the July issue: Trying to squeeze into a size that’s too small doesn’t usually work — whether it’s a person dressing for a night on the town, or a retailer looking for its flagship site. Yet with a creative tweak, clothing retailer Syms managed to wriggle into a new Fifth Avenue storefront it badly wanted.
The apparel company liked the retail space at 530 Fifth Avenue, but thought it was just too petite. To get around that, Syms’ brokers, along with landlord Joseph Moinian, arrived at the idea of also leasing a piece of second-floor office space.
Unfortunately, the office space on the second floor did not connect with the available retail space. “It was kind of far-fetched. We had people punching through bathrooms,” said Robin Abrams, executive vice president at Lansco Corp., which represented Syms and won the top retail award from the Real Estate Board of New York last month for orchestrating the tricky deal. [more]

Joseph Moinian and 100 John Street

Developer Joseph Moinian has closed on an $84 million loan extension at the Financial District rental tower the Renaissance, where he had been facing a foreclosure lawsuit from special servicer LNR Partners, a representative for the developer said today.
Moinian, CEO of the Moinian Group, had been in talks with his lenders to refinance the loan for more than a year, according to records from commercial real estate analytics firm Trepp. As The Real Deal previously reported, LNR filed to foreclose on the property in February, alleging that Moinian had not been making monthly mortgage payments despite taking in $550,000 per month in rent at the 221-unit property and despite having been notified of his default on the loan in August 2010. Negotiations for a loan modification were still ongoing at the time. “This extension allows us to move forward with the planned renovation of this core asset and once again demonstrates our commitment to working with our banks and lenders to secure the long-term success of our portfolio,” Moinian said in a statement provided to The Real Deal. [more]

From the June issue: Joseph Moinian founded the successful ladies’ apparel company Billy Jack for Her before venturing into real estate in 1982. Today, the Moinian Group operates a 20 million-square-foot portfolio of assets across the U.S., valued at more than $8 billion. The firm’s holdings include the newly opened W New York-Downtown Hotel & Residences and a stake in Chicago’s Sears Tower. At the 768,500-square-foot office tower 3 Columbus Circle, Moinian is close to completing a $175 million redevelopment, after a $138 million equity investment from SL Green Realty Corp. helped fend off an attempted takeover by the Related Companies. Click here to read the interview.

Joseph Moinian’s latest West Side hotel project hasn’t even gotten off the ground yet, but it’s already unpopular with its neighbors. According to the Post, union members from Local 79 have set up one of their infamous giant inflatable rats in front of the 237 West 54th Street site where Moinian has begun demolition work in preparation for the 34-story, Gene Kaufman-designed project. Apparently Moinian is using non-union workers to take down the existing, five-story structure after receiving approval from the city’s Department of Buildings last month, and sources said workers at Harry Gross’ next-door development site were angered when they got wind of it. [more]

Follow The Real Deal on Twitter to get a real-time look at what’s going on at the biggest retail convention in the world, International Council of Shopping Centers, known as RECon. Look at tweets with the hashtags #ICSC and #RECon. So far, we’ve noted that developer Joseph Moinian is in attendance and Annie Shinn, a broker at Winick Realty, said her firm recently listed 555 Sixth Avenue. Besides this event, The Real Deal tweets all sorts of fun stuff from industry parties to real estate gossip to goings-on at The Real Deal. We can be found at twitter.com/trdny. And fun party pics, factoids and articles are posted on our Facebook fan page: facebook.com/therealdealmagazine. TRD