A publicly-traded real estate investment trust, one-third owned by Vornado Realty Trust, has completed a $275 million refinancing of Rego Park II, a 600,000-square-foot retail complex in Central Queens, GlobeSt.com reported.
The seven-year loan will repay the existing loan on the property, which, as of Dec. 31, 2010, had a balance of $277 million for the $410 million retail development, GlobeSt.com said.
Tenants at the complex include Costco, Century 21 and Kohl’s. [GlobeSt]
From the November issue: Three autumns ago, the collapse of Lehman Brothers knocked the wind out of New York’s real estate industry. Home sales flattened. Prices plunged. And, as layoffs mounted, office buildings emptied out. While there have been some spurts of activity, the industry has not gotten back to the highs of the boom. In fact, as the unemployment rate still hovers at an uncomfortably high level, and Wall Street (a once-reliable real estate engine) reports losses, it seems that a complete recovery might be years away.
All the same, there are signs of comebacks — whether they are from developers who once defaulted on mega-loans and seemed like pariahs, or stock prices that have bounced back from the doldrums at some public real estate companies. There are also geographic stretches of the city that had been pocked with empty retail spaces and empty condo buildings, but are now filling up with stores and residents. There are even some bankers who had been caught up in the subprime mess who are now back on the lending scene in a big way. [more]
Vornado Realty Trust bought a discounted five-story Tribeca building in an auction yesterday for $8.2 million, Crain’s reported, outbidding at least five other interested parties.
Bidding for the 14,545-square-foot property at 334 Canal Street, near Lispenard Street, started at $7 million, after lender CNBS Trust took control of the property from Mymom Realty, which purchased it for $11 million four years ago. Mymom attempted to sell it for $14.5 million in 2009.
The building has full-floor loft apartments and a 2,900-square-foot retail space. As The Real Deal previously reported, Mymon closed on the building at the top of the market in 2007 for $11 million, purchasing it from New York City landlord Michael Marvisi, who recently leased a Tribeca townhouse at 153 Franklin Street short-term to controversial French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn while he underwent questioning over the alleged rape of a New York hotel maid.
From the July issue: These days — with credit tight and lawsuits sprouting like weeds — no real estate transaction is simple. Whether it’s a one-bedroom condo or a distressed office building, sales are often slower and more complicated than expected.
That said, some deals have so much “hair” on them that they deserve special recognition. This month, The Real Deal took a behind-the-scenes look at some of the most complicated deals in the last year. These include some of the city’s highest-profile transactions, such as Google’s $1.77 billion purchase of the Chelsea office building at 111 Eighth Avenue. The building’s owners were able to lure the technology behemoth into an all-cash deal, but only after they spent a nerve-racking two weeks — during which the property was not actively marketed — waiting for Google’s top brass to approve the record-setting sale.
Vornado Realty Trust bought out its partners, the California Public Employees Retirement System, Magic Johnson and MacFarlane Partners at the stalled Harlem development site at 1800 Park Avenue near 124th Street, the New York Post reported. Vornado has not made public its plans for the site, but the Post said it renewed building permits for a 23-story garage, retail and office property. The firm had tried to develop 1800 Park in 2007 but couldn’t get enough commitments from anchor tenants. Meanwhile, in his annual letter to investors, Chairman Steven Roth said developer Mel Blum is rejoining the firm and that Vornado intends to pursue projects at 15 Penn Plaza and 220 Central Park South, currently owned by Extell Development. [Post]
Developers Steven Roth and Gary Barnett are set to face off at 220 Central Park South, a 1950s-era apartment building that Roth’s Vornado Realty Trust has been planning to demolish and replace with a 41-story, $400 million condominium tower for more than five years. But Barnett, president of the increasingly powerful Extell Development, is the leaseholder on the parking garage below, and so far he’s refusing to be bought out, according to the Wall Street Journal. In December, Vornado agreed to pay $40 million to buy out the remaining 26 rent-regulated tenants at the 124-unit building, which it acquired with the Clarett Group for $131 million in 2005. [more]
The city’s Landmark Preservation Commission has asked Steven Roth’s Vornado Realty Trust to try again with its proposed renovation plans for the newly-landmarked interior of the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Building at 510 Fifth Avenue, at 43rd Street. According to the New York Times, preservationists argued during a hearing yesterday that Vornado’s planned redesign, by original building architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, would involve too many changes to the five-story, 1950s-era property, which Vornado bought for $58 million last year. [more]
With a net worth of $22 billion, David Koch, executive vice president of consumer products conglomerate Koch Industries, is the richest man in New York, beating out the $18.1 billion Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who’s runner-up for that title, and the $16 billion hedge fund king John Paulson, in third. But according to Forbes’ 2011 list of the world’s billionaires, New York is home to a whopping 68 individuals with net worths in the 10- and 11-digit range, and naturally, many of them made their fortunes in New York City real estate (see The Real Deal’s November 2010 cover story, “Billionaire’s real estate club”). Click here for the latest list of the industry’s richest. TRD
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For New York City real estate, 2010 in many ways marked a return to normalcy after the tumultuous aftermath of the financial crisis. As the ubiquitous real estate appraiser and Miller Samuel CEO Jonathan Miller put it: “it was a year of a sense of relief.” City home prices stopped their freefall and sales activity improved considerably from the post-Lehman doldrums. Stalled condominium projects like the Sheffield and 1 Rector Park re-started sales. Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim bought Tamir Sapir’s Fifth Avenue townhouse, the Duke Semans mansion, for $44 million. As the unspoken taboo on ostentatious spending faded, a number of high-end residential properties changed hands at the end of the year, including Brooke Astor’s 14-room duplex at 778 Park Avenue, which finally sold after two years on the market (albeit for a significant discount from its original asking price). Japanese retailer Uniqlo snagged 89,000 square feet at 666 Fifth Avenue’s former Brooks Brothers space for a record $300 million, demonstrating that retail is still thriving along the posh shopping corridor.
But the economic downturn continued to make its presence felt. The office market remained uneven and troubled lender iStar Financial fought to stave off bankruptcy amid lingering fears of a double-dip recession.
Here are The Real Deal staff’s picks for the stories that most altered the New York City real estate landscape in 2010, in alphabetical order. [more]
From the November issue: The nine New York City real estate titans that earned ink on this year’s Forbes 400 list have a combined worth of nearly $21 billion, a sum surpassing the GDP of dozens of sovereign countries. Together, they control hundreds of millions of square feet of real estate the world over — and their collective portfolio includes several newspapers, magazines, at least one cable channel, an NFL franchise and a small fleet of private jets.
To be sure, all nine members of the Forbes list have shown extreme generosity over the years, and their names dot the city’s landscape, from the LeFrak Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital to the Leonard Stern Business School and the Sheldon Solow Library at New York University.
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