After being designated a landmark only two days ago, 70 Pine Street has been sold to Nathan Berman’s Metro Loft Management for $205 million, or $186 per square foot, according to the Post. Metro signed on to buy the 1.1 million-square-foot tower, the fifth tallest in the city at 66 stories, from Kumho Investment Bank of South Korea. Metro plans to turn the property into residential rentals.

Kumho previously purchased the building, along with 72/74 Wall Street, from AIG for $150 million.

The deal was brokered by a team of agents from Jones Lang LaSalle, including Richard Baxter, Ron Cohen, Scott Latham and Jon Caplan, which did not offer the building publicly but rather went straight to Metro. [more]

The Landmarks Preservation Commission looked in to designating the Sears store on Beverley Road, near Bedford Avenue in Flatbush, a landmark, the Brooklyn Paper reported. The three-story building’s Art Deco edifice remains largely intact from its 1932 opening. “It recall[s] the Empire State Building — it has all these Art Deco details as you get closer,” said Tenzing Chadotsang, who directs a grant program for the commission and first brought the building to the city’s attention. The commission discussed the building at Tuesday’s meeting, when they designated four other buildings as landmarks, but pushed the decision back to a later date. [Brooklyn Paper]

Click image to see full map of proposed historic districts

The Landmarks Preservation Commission and Brooklyn Community Board 3 will convene tomorrow night to host an open forum on four new proposed historic districts within Bedford-Stuyvesant and one expansion of an existing landmarked district in the neighborhood, according to neighborhood organization Bedford-Stuyvesant Society for Historic Preservation. If the plan were to go through, a combined 75 blocks in Bedford-Stuyvesant would be encompassed in the landmarking. TRD [more]

From the December issue: The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission proposed making Greenwich Village a historic district 45 years ago this month. The commission proposed a 65-block area with about 2,000 buildings roughly bounded by 12th and 13th streets to the north, University Place on the east, Washington Square South and West Fourth Street on the south and Washington Street to the west. The move came just eight months after the city council approved the creation of the commission, founded to preserve the architecture of the city following the destruction of Pennsylvania Station. Click here for more highlights in real estate history.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission announced today that it has granted 104 West 40th Street, between Broadway and Sixth Avenue, landmark protected status. Also, after month of anticipation, the garment district’s new hotel, Fashion 26 – A Wynham Hotel, was slated to open today at 152 West 26th Street on the corner of Seventh Avenue. Click here for more. TRD [more]

When a Bedford-Stuyvesant brownstone saw one of its walls collapse during a dubious renovation in January, few could have anticipated the community conflict that would emerge from the accident. While homeowner Robert Providence said that the unlicensed work that led to the collapse, which was being conducted in the basement of his $770,000 townhouse at 329 MacDonough Street, was done without his permission, the onus fell on him to restore his home in Bed-Stuy’s historic district. Although city officials had originally ordered the building be demolished due to safety concerns, neighbors successfully lobbied to keep it around. Providence has since wound up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, but preservationists are happy — even if they can’t show their enthusiasm monetarily. “No one has the money to help,” Providence said.

The contentious Kingsbridge Armory redevelopment plan was approved Monday in an 8 to 4 vote by the City Planning Commission. The $310 million project, through which the Related Companies will turn the vacant Bronx landmark into a retail mall and movie theater, has been under in recent months from opponents who say a proposed supermarket there will drive nearby Morton Williams out of business. At the vote on Monday, protestors also argued that the developer should allow workers to form a union, holding signs that read “Say no way to poverty pay” and chanting “Two four six eight, Related must negotiate.” Related has said the project will bring thousands of permanent and construction jobs to the area. Mayor Bloomberg, who is in favor of the plan, said in a statement that the project is “an enormous opportunity to revitalize [the Armory] as a hub of activity and jobs in the West Bronx.” A City Council vote on the project will take place within 50 days. [NYT]

Barnum & Bailey’s James Bailey home for sale: Stribling & Associates is listing Barnum & Bailey Circus
entrepreneur James Bailey’s mansion at 10 St. Nicholas Place in Harlem
for $6.5 million. The 8,250-square-foot Victorian home is
three and a half stories tall with a garden and a cellar. The landmark
limestone building has 12 bedrooms, four full and two half baths, with interiors
designed by Joseph Burr Tiffany, cousin of artist and designer Louis Comfort Tiffany. TRD
[more]