From left: Comptroller John Liu and McSam Hotel Group CEO Sam ChangJust as investigators from the U.S. Attorney’s office have been probing campaign contributions to Comptroller John Liu, the New York Post has found connections between at least $29,600 worth of donations and boutique hotelier Sam Chang.

Liu’s campaign has been under investigation, and fund-raiser Xing Wu Pan was arrested for allegedly using straw donors to hide contributions that exceeded the $4,950 limit mandated by city laws.

Records show Chang donated $800 July 1. One employee of the McSam Hotel Group donated $800 in June and six more employees of the McSam Hotel Group each donated $800 July 9. [more]

From the September issue: In its eight years of publication, The Real Deal has covered the real estate industry in a city that’s been transformed by a massive building boom, was crippled by the subsequent bust, and is now in the midst of a tentative recovery.
The compendium of stories we’ve written runs the gamut from the record-setting building and apartment purchases during the boom, to the toppling of mega-developers during the bust, to new entrepreneurs trying to get into the real estate game during today’s fragile recovery. This month, for the anniversary of our 100th issue, we bring you some of the most compelling stories we’ve tracked in these pages, many of which have unfolded and evolved over time, much as the magazine itself has. And watch the video below to see The Real Deal Publisher Amir Korangy talk about the special process for creating the unique 100th issue cover.
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32 Pearl Street (Source: Propertyshark) and Sam Chang

Hotel developer Sam Chang has sold property at 32 Pearl Street in
Lower Manhattan to Hersha Hospitality Trust for $28.7 million, Real
Estate Weekly reported. He had bought the lowrise, along with the
adjacent 6 Water Street, for $56 million in 2008. The small buildings
remained standing even though Chang initially planned a tall hotel at
the site. Ashish Parikh, CFO of Pennsylvania-based
Hersha, told REW that it plans to build an 81-room Hampton Inn at 32
Pearl Street and is not buying 6 Water Street. But Hersha does not
intend to tear the property down, and instead plans a rehabilitation and converstion by adding additional floors to the seven-story
building. [more]

Sam Chang and 397-401 East 8th Street

An East Village development site where developer Sam Chang once planned to build a six-story residential condominium is back on the market for $5.2 million, according to EV Grieve. Chang’s McSam Hotel Group purchased the 4,324-square-foot vacant lot, at 397-401 East 8th Street, for $4.9 million site-unseen in 2007. A press release at the time described the deal as having been arranged “virtually in minutes over the telephone.” Four years later, Chang appears to be in the midst of a selling spree — he recently unloaded stalled hotel project sites in the Financial District and in Union Square, as well as his new Holiday Inn Express at 126 Water Street — and has enlisted Alan Miller and Paul Nigido of Eastern Consolidated as well as Lee Odell Real Estate to market this site, too. [more]

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Sam Chang and a 2007 rendering of 33 Beekman Street

Sam Chang’s McSam Hotel Group has unloaded a distressed Financial District development site where it had been planning a 36-story, Gene Kaufman-designed hotel, marking the third New York City project the developer has sold off in the past three months, according to city records made public today.

The site, at 33 Beekman Street, sits across the street from Frank Gehry’s brand-new 8 Spruce Street rental tower and traded June 15 for roughly $15.7 million — around 29 percent less than the $22 million McSam paid to acquire it in early 2007, public records indicate. A lis pendens was filed against the $19.9 million mortgage McSam held there in September 2010.

Kaufman’s plans had called for a 36-story, 270-room hotel that would have been the first four-star hotel in Lower Manhattan had it opened in 2009, as originally proposed. The red-and-yellow building was supposed to feature exterior glass elevators, four floors of amenities and meeting rooms, and a public plaza. [more]

From left: Jay Shah, CEO of Hersha Hospitality, a 2010 rendering of the Hyatt Union Square and Sam Chang of McSam Hotel Group

[Updated 10:54 a.m., June 30, with comments from Ashish Parikh, Hersha’s CFO]
Hersha Hospitality Trust said it agreed to buy the stalled Hyatt Union Square hotel in Manhattan for $104.1 million, or $595,000 per key, from McSam Hotel Group.

The hotel, at 132 Fourth Avenue, between 12th and 13th streets, was originally conceived as a Gene Kaufman-designed hotel for developer Sam Chang, president and CEO of McSam Hotel Group, but was delayed for several years amid a partial stop work order and other construction related problems.  
Philadelphia-based Hersha said it will pay $36 million in cash, cancel a $10 million mezzanine loan that it made to the seller, plus interest, and assume two mortgage loans valued at $55 million. Hersha said the deal will close once construction is completed adding that it will not assume any construction or cost overrun risk as part of the deal.

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Sam Chang and the Holiday Inn Express at 126 Water Street

Hotelier Sam Chang has unloaded the Holiday Inn Express at 126 Water Street in Lower Manhattan for $36.7 million, Real Estate Weekly reported. The buyer was a subsidiary of Hersha Hospitality, for which this will be the 15th hotel in New York City. Chang, who runs the McSam Hotel Group, had purchased the property for $9.5 million in 2005 when it was a two-story retail and restaurant space. The 26-story, 112-room hotel that now stands in its place was completed during the summer of 2010, but by November, the property had been hit with a lis pendens, which marks the beginning of the foreclosure process. [REW] Comments

From left: Sam Chang, architect Gene Kaufman, 538 West 48th Street, Abraham Hidary of Hidrock Realty and 25 West 37th Street (building photos credit: PropertyShark)

The unexpectedly fast recovery in the Manhattan hotel market has spurred developers such as Sam Chang and Hidrock Realty to dust off once-stalled projects or start new ones as room rates and occupancy levels have grown over the last year.
“We are seeing renewed interest in projects that have been stalled,” hotel consultant John Fox, a senior vice president at Colliers PKF Consulting, said. “Despite significant additions to the supply of rooms over the past few years, occupancies are at levels approximating those before the declines that started in September of 2008.” [more]

Sam Chang and his Holiday Inn Express

Prolific hotel developer Sam Chang of the McSam Hotel Group will be opening a Holiday Inn Express in the Financial District. The 26-story, 112-unit hotel will be located at 124-126 Water Street, at the corner of Water Street and Wall Street, in close proximity to the New York Stock Exchange. The hotel is among the first Holiday Inns to open in Lower Manhattan with the brand’s new signage, created to give the chain a more contemporary image. More than 3,300 Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express properties are expected to be relaunched by the end of 2010, and more than 2,500 of the hotels have
already been relaunched to date. TRD

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Samuel Rosenblatt, top, and Sam Chang. Chimney damage at 575 Eighth Avenue.

Midtown office building owner Olmstead Properties is suing hotel real
estate investment trust Hersha Hospitality Trust and others for $10
million in the latest chapter in a four-year dispute at the site of a [more]