Willets Point rendering

UPDATED, 10:22 a.m., May 11: Queens Community Board 7 will hold a public hearing on Monday to discuss the Related Companies and Sterling Equities’ Willets Point and Willets West development plans, as part of the city’s public review process of the 62-acre Queens project, according to a blog operated by advocacy group Willets Point United. [more]

Willets Point rendering

UPDATED, Feb. 5, 5:47p.m.: Will a casino come to Willets Point afterall? The owners of the Mets had placed their bets on developing a casino at the Queens site in order to win back some of the $162 million the team lost in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, the New York Post reported. Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz’s Sterling Equities had a proposal for a casino complex with a 500-room hotel and 1.8 million square feet of retail. [more]

Sterling's Fred Wilpon and the Willets West retail center

Did the Related Companies and Sterling Equities have an unfair advantage in securing the bid to develop Willets Point? Sources told the Queens Times Ledger that none of the other bidders were aware that land to the west of Citi Field, which is currently used as a New York Mets parking lot and owned by the Wilpon family that heads Sterling Equities, was up for development. That’s where the partnership plans a 1 million-square-foot retail and entertainment complex called Willets West. [more]

Willets Point retail center rendering

After spending two years cleaning up 23 acres of Willets Point, the Related Companies and Sterling Equities will start developing the site with a hotel and retail development just east of Citi Field on 126th Street, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced today in officially unveiling the plans for the 50-years-in-the-making, $3 billion project.

The developers will start with $100 million in capital funds from the city to demolish faulty infrastructure, clean contaminated lands and build permanent improvements that form the groundwork of the project. Once complete, they’ll begin construction on a 200-room hotel and 30,000 square feet of retail and restaurants. [more]

From left: Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sterling's Fred Wilpon and Related's Stephen Ross

The Bloomberg administration’s new Willets Point agreement calls for a 1.4 million-square-foot mall and parking garage on one side of Citi Field, and a 200-room hotel and stores on the other, according to the Wall Street Journal. As previously reported, the administration scrapped its original plans for the site, which included the use of eminent domain, and instead struck a deal with the Related Companies and Sterling Equities, the real estate firm controlled by the owner of the Mets and Citi Field. [more]

From left: Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Related's Stephen Ross and Sterling's Fred Wilpon

The Related Companies and the real estate firm controlled by the New York Mets ownership, Sterling Equities, are closing in on a deal to develop a mall on Willets Point, the Wall Street Journal reported. The proposal calls for significant changes to the vision laid out by the Bloomberg administration, most notably bringing more retail to the long-awaited $3 billion project’s first phase. [more]

Sterling American Property, the real estate investment management fund controlled by Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz’s Sterling Equities, is letting go of a struggling Long Island office complex in a deed in lieu of foreclosure, according to the Wall Street Journal. The 127,000-square-foot Hauppauge property, Woodlands Office Park, had a loan balance of $12.7 million as of last summer, which was being overseen by special servicer ORIX Capital Markets. … [more]

The penthouse at 812 Park Avenue

A 15-room penthouse triplex at 812 Park Avenue is in contract for less than half of its original asking price.

Financier Gordon Pattee and his wife first listed their home in the white-glove co-op for $36.5 million in 2007, at the height of the real estate boom. After several rounds of price cuts, the price was finally chopped to $15.9 million, and the listing is now in contract, according to Streeteasy.com.

Brokers familiar with the building, located between 74th and 75th streets, said the sale price is likely between $13 and $14 million.

The Pattees’ five-bedroom, seven-bathroom apartment spans the 13th, 14th, and 15th floors of the building, according to the listing, a co-exclusive between Brown Harris Stevens’ Caroline Guthrie and Bunny Goodwin of Sotheby’s International Realty. … [more]

Time is running out for the holdouts in Queens’ Willets Point, where the city is planning to make its first move towards seizing a 20-acre swath of land through eminent domain next week. According to the Wall Street Journal, the parcel represents the first phase of the 62-acre development project, for which the city will begin soliciting bids from developers in April. Among the developers who have previously expressed interest in the project are the Related Companies, Muss Development and the Wilpon Family’s Sterling Equities. … [more]

Mets principal owner Sterling Equities is considering selling part of the team to “strategic partners” due to the financial uncertainty created by the lawsuit filed against them by the trustee in the Bernie Madoff bankruptcy case, the Post reported. Fred Wilpon, the team’s CEO, and his son Jeff Wilpon, the COO, said in a statement that they have hired investment bank Allen & Co. to explore alternatives, including adding one or more strategic partners. While Sterling Equities is working to settle the suit, it wants to “address the air of uncertainty created by this lawsuit, and to provide additional assurance that the New York Mets will continue to have the necessary resources to fully compete and win,” the statement said…. [more]