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]

Joint owners JPMorgan Asset Management and AXA Equitable Life Insurance have secured $372 million in refinancing for 1285 Sixth Avenue at Rockefeller Center, HFF, which arranged the refinancing, announced yesterday. The 10-year fixed-rate loan on the 1.65 million-square-foot, 42-story Midtown tower is with MetLife Real Estate Investments, HFF said.

Whitney Wilcox and Mike Tepedino, senior managing directors at HFF, represented the borrower.

Developed in 1960 as the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States headquarters, the building is currently 99.9 percent leased, HFF said. Anchor tenants include UBS, law firm Paul Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and advertising agency BBDO. – Katherine Clarke [more]

From left: Steve Witkoff, Howard Lorber and 1107 Broadway

Lehman Brothers has reached a deal to sell the in-default debt on 1107 Broadway to the Witkoff Group and Howard Lorber’s Vector Group for about $190 million, the New York Post reported.
The deal, determined at auction yesterday, comes just days after Lehman sold its majority ownership stake in 200 Fifth Avenue, located between 23rd and 24th streets, to JPMorgan Chase. The two buildings, connected by a footbridge, make up what used to be the International Toy Center.
“We think it is one of the great opportunities we’ve seen,” Steve Witkoff, CEO of the Witkoff Group, told the Wall Street Journal.

Witkoff, who has 90 days to finalize the deal at 1107 Broadway, between 24th and 25th streets, said he plans to turn the building into high-end condominiums. [more]

Lehman Brothers has sold its 90-plus percent stake in the former International Toy Center at 200 Fifth Avenue to JPMorgan Chase, in a deal that values the building at $700 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. Lehman had reportedly been shopping the building at the corner of 23rd Street that it bought for $480 million in 2007 through Eastdil Secured’s Adam Spies and Doug Harmon. At one point it appeared the failed investment bank would lose millions on the building as it struggled through vacancies in 2009. But an expensive interior upgrade and improving market helped lure tenants like Eataly and Tiffany & Co. to the building, instantly raising the building’s profile. It’s unclear whether the costly revamp sucked all potential profit from the trade. [more]

JPMorgan Chase is bringing $2.9 billion worth of bonds backed by commercial mortgages to the market as investor demand picks up for offices and shopping center debt, Bloomberg News reported. The pool, which may be sold as soon as next week, includes 42 loans on 84 properties, 41.1 percent of which are retail and 35.6 percent are office buildings. The largest loan in the deal is a $199.8 million mortgage on Jersey City’s Newport Centre, a 1.5 million-square-foot mall where Macy’s occupies 229,889 square feet. [more]

JPMorgan Chase has been subpoenaed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over mortgages issued before the real estate collapse that have since soured, Bloomberg News reported. The move comes amid an SEC probe into the mortgage practices of several U.S. banks, including Credit Suisse, which was subpoenaed last week. The JPMorgan subpoena is seeking information related to Bear Stearns mortgage practices, after bond insurers alleged that the bank, which JPMorgan acquired in 2008, had demanded refunds from originators but then failed to share those refunds with sellers. [more]

JPMorgan Chase is having no trouble finding tenants for its One Chase Manhattan Plaza building on Liberty Street downtown, the problem is, it wants some room for itself. According to the Observer, Chase went from trying to sell the building to wanting more of its operations in the Financial District building, at the expense of current leaseholder, law firm Milbank Tweed Hadley McCloy. The firm holds a five-year renewal option on its 350,000-square-foot lease that expires in 2013, but JPMorgan is reluctant to sign the lease. That has Milbank searching for new space, preferably in the less-expensive downtown market. [more]

Real estate finance company Capital Trust has reached a deal to restructure its outstanding debt, thanks in part to an $83 million mezzanine loan by an affiliate of Five Mile Capital Partners that will finance a new subsidiary holding the bulk of Capital’s interest-earning assets. According to an announcement yesterday, Capital will extinguish its $98.1 million senior credit facility and $143.8 million in junior subordinated notes while spinning off its $339.6 million in legacy repurchase obligations with JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup into the new CT Legacy REIT. TRD [more]

A coalition of federal agencies and state attorneys general investigating banks’ foreclosure practices have proposed a “binding legal requirement” for handling home foreclosures, according to Bloomberg News. The proposal came in the form of a 27-page document submitted to mortgage servicers last week, and, along with yet-to-be-determined fines and penalties, is the result of a probe launched in October into reports that banks were using faulty documents to foreclose on homes. [more]

Eighteen different military families are alleging that JPMorgan Chase illegally foreclosed on their homes, making harassing calls and overcharging on their mortgages. In this video from MSNBC, a JPMorgan spokesperson admits that it “clearly made mistakes,” but residual outrage is still rippling through the political community. [more]