Gramercy Capital, a Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village creditor, is pushing to remove Tishman Speyer Properties from its position as manager of the 80-acre property, which it bought with BlackRock Realty in 2006. Tishman and BlackRock had missed a $16.1 million debt payment earlier this month, which may have spurred Gramercy Capital to push for the replacement. The removal of Tishman as property manager would need to first be approved by CW Capital, special servicer for the senior portion of the debt. City Council member Daniel Garodnick said that any decision to change managers should take the comfort of the residents into account first. “If there is a change in management, we will want it to be seamless, without any disruption to tenants or reduction in service,” Garodnick said.

Bernstein Liebhard, the firm that represented tenant plaintiffs in the recent landmark Peter Cooper Village-Stuyvesant Town lawsuit, is pursuing similar complainants in Queens, the New York Daily News reported. Residents of Forest Hills’ condo building Parker Towers have received mailings from the firm, which is reportedly looking to represent tenants who may have had their rent illegally deregulated. “We believe that your landlord may also be overcharging you,” the mailings say. The firm has also targeted other developments, beyond the 1,327-unit Parker Towers complex, although it is not immediately clear which residential developments those may be.

Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty, owners of the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village complex, are finding fewer options to avoid defaulting on their $3 billion mortgage and will likely attempt to restructure their debt or sell the collection of apartment buildings, according to Crain’s. While there’s no word yet on when the development’s owners will make a move on their investment, a Tishman spokesperson said that the group has requested that the loan be handed off to a special servicer to help restructure its debt. The owners spent a record $5.4 billion for the properties in 2006, hoping to deregulate the long-time regulated units. But, after tenants won a lawsuit last month to block that initiative, Tishman and BlackRock’s financial woes continued to mount. According to Fitch Rating, the complex doesn’t produce enough revenue for the owners to meet their debt obligations.

Fitch Ratings today downgraded three CMBS deals backed by Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village following the Court of Appeals ruling earlier this month that the owners illegally converted rent-stabilized apartments to market-rate units and must refund more than $200 million to current and former tenants. In a landmark 4-2 decision, the court upheld a lower court ruling that rent-stabilized tenants could not be forced to pay market rates in buildings receiving so-called J-51 tax incentives from the city. Tishman and its investment partner, BlackRock Realty, were dependent on that additional income to finance their massive $5.4 billion acquisition of Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village in 2006. The property had already been in serious financial trouble due to the commercial credit crisis and national recession, and this ruling could deliver a major blow to the sponsors. [more]

Commercial real estate lender SL Green Realty Corporation said yesterday that it

expects to play a role in restructuring debt on Stuyvesant
Town and Peter Cooper Village. Although New York State’s highest court found

last week that developer Tishman Speyer and BlackRock Realty Advisors were illegally
converting rent-stabilized apartments into substantially more expensive
market-rate units, the debt on the properties still needs restructuring.
Even before the court’s ruling, Rob Speyer, president of Tishman Speyer,
said BlackRock and his company would have to look into restructuring the

mounting debt. So far, SL Green and Gramercy Capital have invested $200
million in the $1.4 billion mezzanine debt and will “actively monitor the
situation very closely [as] the potential exists to be a part of some form of
restructuring or resolution of this investment,” according to SL Green CEO
Marc Holliday.