The owners of the trendy, 128-room Bryant Park Hotel are struggling to keep up with payments on their $89 million mortgage, according to the Wall Street Journal. Data from Realpoint LLC shows that the owners — investor Philip Pilevsky, Century 21 discount retail stores owner Raymond Gindi and Rainbow Shops owner Joseph Chehebar — were late on their March payment as a result of insufficient cash flow. They have since made the payment, and the loan is now current, but industry experts say the 40 West 40th Street hotel, converted from an office building in 2001, hasn’t been as successful as its creators originally anticipated. [more]

The effects of the economic downturn are being felt by developers citywide, but some are faring better than others. Though hotel and restaurant developer Sant Singh Chatwal and his son, Vikram, suffered from bankruptcies and lenders’ lawsuits in the last commercial real estate collapse, they seem to be recovering well, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Chatwal Hotel, an 83-room, $100 million-plus project in a landmark building in the Theater District is set to debut Wednesday. The Chatwals also plan to open hotels in Chelsea, Noho and Miami’s South Beach, modeled after two of their Times Square boutique hotels, the Dream and the Night. Chatwal has had their share of losses, as two of their nine New York hotels — the original Dream hotel on West 55th Street and the Time hotel on West 49th Street — went delinquent on their securitized mortgages this year, according to Realpoint, a credit-rating agency. But at a time when other developers are cutting back, the Chatwals are expanding their hotel management company, with their ultimate goal to have 100 hotels within 10 years, Chatwal said. [WSJ]

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W New York – Union Square hotel

LEM Mezzanine, a Philadelphia-based private equity fund, acquired Istithmar’s former W New York – Union Square hotel for $2 million, plus the assumption of $212 million in debt, in a foreclosure auction held in Manhattan this morning, marking the first major asset to be sold since the November debt crisis emerged in Dubai. LEM bagged the troubled property at 201 Park Avenue South after a brief bidding war in which Istithmar officials tried to buy the 270-room hotel on the condition that they not have to assume the hotel’s October and November debt payments. Sources at the auction told The Real Deal that the hotel would continue to operate under the W brand, while LEM would make an undisclosed amount of capital improvements and position the hotel for an eventual recovery of the New York economy. “Despite the recent downturn of the hotel industry, and the defaults that led to today’s foreclosure auction, we are optimistic about the future,” LEM’s affiliate company said in a statement. [more]

In the wake of the potentially crippling state appeals court decision over rent destabilization at Stuyvestant Town and Peter Cooper Village last month, the complex’s owners are creeping closer and closer to default. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock could likely stave off default until February on the property they acquired for $5.4 billion in 2006. But that was before the landmark Oct. 22 ruling, which meant the companies might be forced to pay back $200 million in rent overcharges to tenants whose apartments were illegally deregulated. Now, credit rating agency RealPoint has said the owners have only $6.75 million left in reserves for Stuy Town, which reportedly burns up around $16 million each month. “We could easily see them go delinquent in December,” said Steve Kurtitz, senior vice president at RealPoint. Another source told the New York Post that while default is inevitable, it is more likely to happen in January. [Post]

Stuyvesant Town and Tishman Speyer CEO Jerry Speyer

The owners of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village are scheduled to meet with the special servicer of their $3 billion loan within a week to discuss restructuring the debt, according to information from mortgage tracking firm Trepp.

Special servicer CWCapital sent a note to the loan’s bondholders, saying it would meet to discuss a forbearance on the loan with the borrowers, Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty, which bought the massive rent-regulated property on Manhattan’s East Side in 2006 for $5.4 billion.

A loan is transferred to a special servicer if it is in risk of default or the borrower wants to restructure it.

“A pre-negotiation letter has been sent to the borrower by [CWCapital] for signature and it is expected that a meeting will be held with the borrower within one week,” the note sent by the special servicer CWCapital to bondholders said. [more]

While commercial real estate experts predict a rise in distressed securitized loans for New York City over the next year, new data shows the number of assets added to the tally last month actually fell. The quantity of loans transferred to special servicers dropped sharply last month, and those placed on servicer watchlists declined slightly, new data provided by financial tracking firm Trepp to The Real Deal shows. Only three New York City loans were transferred to a special servicer in September, down from 13 the month before, the figures indicate. At the same time, the volume of assets placed on a servicer’s watchlist fell slightly to 40 from 50 the month before. [more]