From left: Archstone CEO Scot Sellers and 377 East 33rd Street (building credit: PropertyShark)While a bidding war has emerged for its portfolio, Archstone acquired a 209-unit Kips Bay apartment building for $131 million, the apartment investment firm announced today, and will rename it Archstone Kips Bay.

The building, at 377 East 33rd Street near First Avenue, had been owned by Madison International Realty and RFR Holding, which bought it for an undisclosed price in 2007, according to public records. The partnership took out a $100 million loan on the building from Anglo Irish Bank. – Adam Fusfeld Comments

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The U.S. real estate arm of international investment firm Investcorp has purchased the mezzanine debt on the Paramount Hotel at 245 West 46th Street from San Francisco-based Fillmore Capital Partners, GlobeSt.com reported. The debt includes two existing mezzanine loans with a principal balance of $40 million.

Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs’ RFR Holding bought the Paramount Hotel for $275 million from Walton Street Capital and Highgate Holdings earlier this year.

“We’re pleased to have had a chance to provide financing for a transaction involving one of New York City’s most renowned hotels, and one that is in a particularly attractive location,” Christopher Hoeffel, a managing director at Investcorp, in a statement. [more]

From left: Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs of RFR Holding

Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs’ RFR Holding is marketing a development site between West 44th and West 43rd streets, Crain’s reported, which could accommodate construction of a building as big as 355,000 square feet.

Sources told Crain’s that the site, on which there are currently three buildings, could command a hefty price tag — $500 per buildable square foot, going by a recent $400-a-square-foot asking price of a nearby site: a 12,000-square-foot plot at 20 West 40th Street, across from Bryant Park. Jones Lang LaSalle Capital Markets Group brokers are marketing the site.

Meanwhile, RFR is still trying to sell a 59 percent stake in the Seagram building at 375 Park Avenue. Sources told Crain’s that investors have been balking at the $700 million price tag for the Seagram building stake. [Crain's] [more]

Aby Rosen

From the July issue: Lately it seems developer Aby Rosen’s every business relationship is worthy of its own daytime soap opera. While Rosen and his company RFR Holding have been in the news a lot since the downturn hit because of struggles at 610 Lexington Avenue, which is on the brink of foreclosure, and because of a split with hotelier Ian Schrager, in the last few months the headlines have been even more fast, furious — and personal — than normal.

In May and June alone, multiple news outlets, including The Real Deal, have published accounts of Rosen’s business feuds. They include: turmoil with his long–time business partner and friend Michael Fuchs; a nasty lawsuit filed by investor Harry Lis involving the sale of one of their joint investments; and a salacious dispute Rosen had with billionaire partner Peter Brant, who is selling his stake in RFR’s Seagram’s Building. According to Crain’s, Brant is selling his stake partially because of “disparaging remarks” Rosen and Fuchs made about Brant’s wife, Stephanie Seymour, whom he’s divorcing.

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Adding to a portfolio that includes the Seagram Building and Lever House, developer Aby Rosen’s RFR Holding has bought the Paramount Hotel for $275 million from Walton Street Capital and Highgate Holdings, according to the Wall Street Journal. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2011.
RFR had an incentive to buy, the Journal said, taking advantage of a tax law by reinvesting proceeds from a recent sale to defer a capital-gains payment. [more]

Aby Rosen and the approved plans for 980 Madison

This isn’t Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs’ finest hour. In addition to a feud with longtime business partner Harry Lis, and an impending foreclosure at their 610 Lexington Avenue development site, Rosen and Fuchs’ RFR Holding is also now running low on cash at 980 Madison Avenue. The loan on the five-story, 100,000-square-foot building, which sits between East 76th and East 77th streets and within the Upper East Side Historic District, is still current, but according to Crain’s, it has entered special servicing and could go into default when it matures in October. [more]

From left: Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs

Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs, managing partners of RFR Holding, are feuding with their longtime business partner over their struggling real estate assets. According to the Post, Rosen and Fuchs sued partner Harry Lis in February for his refusal to inject capital into several properties that became distressed after the Lehman Brothers collapse, despite reaping the benefits of deals, like their $28.9 million sale of 451 Lexington Avenue last fall. According to the lawsuit, the trio had agreed that when one property within their portfolio made money, those profits would go toward propping up other properties in need of cash. [more]

Aby Rosen’s RFR Holding is looking to unload a 49 percent stake in the landmark Seagram Building at more than $2,000 per square foot. According to the Post, the record price per square foot for an office building was set at $1,585 in 2007 with the sale of 450 Park Avenue, and while prices have rebounded somewhat since the real estate crash, such a price is untested in today’s market. “If you want to test the strength of the market, it’s certainly the building with which to do it,” said Woody Heller, head of capital transactions group at Studley, which is not marketing the building. [more]

Aby Rosen and Chinatown Brasserie

The retail condominium that houses Chinatown Brasserie may be headed for an ownership battle now that Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs’ troubled loan on the property is up for grabs. According to the Wall Street Journal, the $17.7 million loan, made in 2007 to the pair’s RFR Holdings and converted into commercial mortgage-backed securities, is backed by the retail condo at the landmark 380 Lafayette Street, where the upscale Chinatown Brasserie opened in 2006. [more]

From left: Rosen and Schrager

From the January issue: Now that their split is official, financier Aby Rosen and hotel impresario Ian Schrager are wasting little time moving on.

Rosen acknowledged publicly for the first time last month that he had reached a deal to buy his ex-partner out of the Gramercy Park Hotel, the troubled boutique project the pair sank $200 million into renovating during the frothy pre-crash days. Then he issued a news release touting the new additions he has planned on his own for the 185-room high-end hotel, including a redesigned culinary operation headed by famed restaurateur and Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer.

Schrager, meanwhile, is actively searching for the site of his “next big thing” and is “in the early stages” of evaluating a hotel within 10 blocks of the Gramercy, said one industry source who asked to remain anonymous. [more]