Ruby Schron

Real estate investor Ruby Schron has forked out $25 million to buy a 49,000-square-foot building at 532 Neptune Avenue near Coney Island, according to public records filed with the city today. But the notoriously low-key real estate mogul isn’t just looking to be closer to the Cyclone.

Schron plans on tearing down a fence on the edge of the property and combining his latest acquisition with the adjacent Trump Village Shopping Center, which he has owned since the early 2000s, he told The Real Deal via a spokesperson. The three-story building he purchased has eight commercial units. Retailer Walgreens occupies the ground floor. [more]

From left: Ruby Schron and Ian Schrager

A Lower East Side art gallery has gone to court to block a proposed 25-story hotel and condominium project developed by Ian Schrager and Ruben Schron, arguing that an environmental review is needed. Sperone Westwater Gallery, itself a relative newcomer to the area, has opposed the development on the grounds that the proposed hotel would be twice as tall as any other building in the neighborhood and hurt the property values of the gallery by blocking out existing sunlight. [more]

Ruby Schron

From the December issue: Ruby Schron is not the type of real estate mogul who has racks of shiny suits spilling out of his closet.

Associates of the septuagenarian investor describe him as “the opposite of pretentious” and “anything but glitzy” — a man so careful with his money that he still lives in the same single-family home in Brooklyn where he raised his eight children, even as his fortune has swelled into the hundreds of millions of dollars. [more]

215 Chrystie Street, Ruby Schron and a blueprint of the hotel

Ruby Schron appears to have found the fastest way to a community board’s heart — promises of rent regulation. The Cammeby’s International head was given the green light by Communtiy Board 3 to build a controversial 25-story hotel on Chrystie Street in the Lower East Side in exchange for extended rent regulation at an adjacent building, Bowery Boogie reported. [more]

215 Chrystie Street

A 25-story mixed-use hotel and luxury condo building could rise above Chrystie Street on the Lower East Side if Community Board 3′s zoning committee approves the recently resubmitted project next month.

According to Bowery Boogie, the developer, which public records reveal to be Ruby Schron’s Cammeby’s International, is seeking to amend plans from 1982 for one of the last undeveloped properties in the Cooper Square Urban Renewal Area, at 215 Chrystie Street. [more]

From left: Steve Witkoff, Ruby Schron and the Woolworth building

An Israeli investor has signed a contract to buy the top 25 floors of the Woolworth building for about $70 million, Crain’s reported. The deal comes six weeks after reports first emerged that Steve Witkoff’s Witkoff Group and Ruby Schron’s Cammeby’s International were considering a sale of the upper portion of the property, which has remained vacant for years in advance of a residential or hotel conversion.  [more]

From left: Steve Witkoff, Ruby Schron and the Woolworth building

The Witkoff Group and Cammeby’s International partnership that owns the historic Woolworth building is in talks to sell the property for as much as $500 million, the New York Post reported. Steve Witkoff and Ruby Schron’s companies joined forces to purchase the 59-story, 935,633-square-foot building, at 233 Broadway near Barclay Street, for $137.5 million in 1998. [more]

The wheels are finally turning on the long-awaited conversion at the top of the Woolworth Building. According to the Post, the building’s ownership is prepared to make a decision on whether the upper portion of the building will be rental apartments or a hotel within the next 30 to 45 days. Office tenants at the 57-story landmark currently occupy floors as high up as the 27th — above that, the floors are vacant, said Steve Witkoff, CEO of the Witkoff Group and a partner in the building’s ownership group, which also includes Cammeby’s International head Ruby Schron. Floors 28 and up are also served by separate elevator banks, and permits to move the stairways and elevators on floors 30 through 47 — a $6 million project — were approved by the Department of Buildings earlier this month. … [more]