East Midtown Plaza

New York State’s highest court has ruled that East Midtown Plaza will remain affordable, ending years of feuding between residents over whether the six-building co-op complex should get privatized, Real Estate Weekly reported.

The 746-unit complex, between First and Second Avenues and 23rd and 25th Streets, is covered under the Mitchell-Lama Law, which sets limits on apartment sale prices. A group of residents—dubbed the “privateers”—wanted to take the co-ops private to turn a profit on their unit sales and to bring in income for the property from increased flip taxes. Another group—the “antis”—wanted to maintain the complex as affordable housing for the area. [more]

Island House

A 400-unit residential complex on Roosevelt Island, called Island House, is going co-op. A new program worked out with the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal will allow existing tenants of the building to buy their apartments at reduced prices, if they wish, David Hirschhorn, a general partner of the group that owns Island House, told Crain’s. He declined to provide prices for the apartments.

There were limited options available for the building, which was built under the state’s Mitchell-Lama program, but whose guarantees of reduced rent had expired. The program provides tax breaks for developers who in exchange have a ceiling on rents they can charge for a specified period. [more]

Masaryk Towers

The residents of a Lower East Side affordable housing cooperative have filed suit against the New York City Department of Housing Preservation & Development for what they say is an illegal hike in shareholders’ carrying charges, according to a statement today from the Community Development Project at the Urban Justice Center, which is representing the tenants. [more]

High-end exclusivity isn’t typically synonymous with the Masaryk Towers, a six-building Mitchell-Lama co-op on Columbia Street on the Lower East Side, but Nike is bringing luxurious finishes, concierge services and state-of-the-art equipment to the residents — in the form of an indoor basketball court.

Bowery Boogie blog reported that the apparel titan is replacing the 1,100-unit complex’s aging gymnasium with a fully renovated court, pricey training equipment, a scoreboard and a renovated locker room. [more]

From left: Rubin Schron of Cammeby’s International Group, Rosewood Realty Group President Aaron Jungreis, 410 St. Nicholas Avenue and 2450 Frederick Douglass Boulevard (building credits: PropertyShark)

Real estate investor Israel Weinberger purchased the nearly 40-year-old Lionel Hampton Houses in Harlem for $32.5 million from Rubin Schron’s Cammeby’s International Group.

The former Mitchell-Lama apartment buildings, with a total of 355 units, are located at 2450 Frederick Douglass Boulevard between 131st and 132nd streets and 410 St. Nicholas Avenue, between 130th and 131st streets.

The sale went into contract in May and closed Oct. 5, city property records published Oct. 31 show. Cammeby’s and Weinberger did not respond to requests for comment.

The sale was brokered by Aaron Jungreis, president of Rosewood Realty Group, for a price of about $91,550 per unit. … [more]

A 365-unit Roosevelt Island co-op has an innovative plan to keep its apartments affordable even as it leaves the Mitchell-Lama program, the Wall Street Journal reported. The 38-year-old Rivercross co-op, at 531 Main Street, will exit the program, which limits the prices landlords can charge for units for 20 years in exchange for tax breaks, but will cap the sale price of 80 percent of the units at $500-per-square-foot. Of that price, $150 will subsidize the remaining 20 percent of the units to keep them near Mitchell-Lama prices. … [more]

Laurence Gluck’s Stellar Management made a deal with special servicer CW Capital Asset Management to extend the $265 million senior mortgage on Independence Plaza in Tribeca by two years, the Wall Street Journal reported, giving it time to see how a rent-stabilization lawsuit plays out. It’s the second such deal Stellar has made with creditors on the 1,332-unit complex.

Stellar partnered with Westbrook Real Estate Partners to purchase the complex at 80 North Moore Street in 2003 with the intent to raise rents by removing it from the Mitchell Lama program. The firm initially took out just a $66 million mortgage, but used more debt to make building improvements. … [more]

With rents skyrocketing, city landlords are looking to drop out of federal affordable housing programs for the first time since the housing peak.

According to the New York Daily News, the Parkview Gardens, a 127-unit, Section 8 complex in Flatbush, and Meadow Manor, a Mitchell Lama building in Queens, have both filed plans to leave the programs by the beginning of next year. No buildings has left the program thus far in 2011, while 79 subsidized buildings shedded the affordable designation during the boom between 2003 and 2007. … [more]

Steve Witkoff and Columbus 95

Landlord Steve Witkoff has failed to meet a deadline to file an appeal to a court decision barring him from increasing rents at Columbus 95, Crain’s reported, meaning that tenants in the rent-regulated apartments are free of rent hikes.

Witkoff had previously attempted to use a legal technicality to increase rents at the building, which was once part of the city’s Mitchell-Lama program.

Following the 2006 acquisition of Columbus 95, which is at 95 West 95th Street, for $68 million, the Witkoff Group applied for rent increases for 248 individual apartments, but the applications sat at the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal for more than a year…. [more]

Tracey Towers, the 869-unit Bronx housing complex on the Mosholu Parkway, is the cheapest Mitchell-Lama project in the city, but it may not stay that way for long. According to the Daily News, the landlord and the management company that runs the towers — the second-largest housing complex in the borough next to Co-Op City — are proposing a 77 percent rent hike over the next three years in order to pay for renovations. The proposal, which includes a 25 percent bump in rent next month and subsequent increases in July 2012 and July 2013, would need to be approved by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and tenants are already mobilizing to fight it. … [more]