From left: David Picket, president of the Gotham Organization, a rendering of Gotham’s rental project on West 45th Street, Joseph Moinan and a rendering of 605 West 42nd Street

The Gotham Organization broke ground today on the largest new construction project in Manhattan, a $520 million development encompassing nearly the entire city block on Manhattan’s Far West Side at 550 West 45th Street between 10th and 11th avenues. The residential portion of the project, which is slated to be completed in 2014, will create 1,238 new rental apartments with 600 of those units expected to be affordable to low-, moderate- and middle-income New Yorkers.

“The groundbreaking for this development is the latest sign that the Far West Side will soon be Manhattan’s next great neighborhood,” Deputy Mayor Robert Steel, who attended the groundbreaking ceremony, told the crowd. And he’s not the only one with that vision. [more]

Overseas buyers make up up one third of New York City condominium purchasers and 15 percent of total purchases, according to a report by Stribling & Associates cited by Crain’s. That is down from the peak market of 2000, when 30 percent of total buyers were foreign. The biggest overseas buyers today are those in Russia, China, Brazil and Argentina, a change from the early years of the new millennium when they hailed from Europe, and particularly Ireland.

“Over the last year the dollar has been especially weak against a number of foreign currencies and that has increased foreign investor participation in Manhattan,” said Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel. [more]

From left: Catherine Harding, Susan James, Patricia Vance, Lauren Muss and Vickey Barron

Sources: Streeteasy.com and The Real Deal

Footnotes: Data is for closed deals filed with the city this week through Friday. The chart only includes sellers’ brokers, because buyers’ brokers’ names are not available in city data or listings. The data does not include deals in contract. To obtain broker information, listing information was compared with sales records filed with the city. Only deals where an individual broker and address can be identified are included. As a result, private sales, listings where an address has not been provided and new development sales by a sales center are not included.

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From the July issue: After years of working separately, father-and-son broker team Siim and Rudi Hanja recently joined Brown Harris Stevens, where Siim is now a senior vice president and his son is a licensed real estate salesperson. Siim moved to BHS after spending a decade at Stribling. Rudi previously worked at Prudential Douglas Elliman. The two have spent the majority of their professional careers working with the real estate market downtown, where they have both lived for most of their lives. But until now, they’ve never officially worked together as real estate brokers. [more]

Laurie Tisch and unit 9N at the Brentmore

Heiress Laurie Tisch had very nearly unloaded her $21.5 million duplex at the Brentmore earlier this year, when would-be buyer Sarah Jessica Parker pulled out of the deal and took her Manolos to Greenwich Village instead. But that’s old news, and now so is the duplex, because Tisch just sold off nine rooms of it to a mystery buyer. According to a rep for listing brokers Cindy Kurtin and Jessica Vertullo Maher, both of Stribling & Associates, unit 9N at 88 Central Park West closed for $15 million. TRD [more]

They say once you’ve lived at the San Remo, the twin-towered Central Park West behemoth and one of the city’s most coveted addresses, it’s difficult to imagine living anywhere else. Shareholders are known to move around within the illustrious building, picking up the leftovers from their neighbors’ divorces, moves and deaths.

That convention holds, too, for San Remo resident James “Jimmy Jr.” Nederlander, presumed heir to Broadway’s the Nederlander Organization, who just dropped $13.5 million on his late neighbor’s three-bedroom apartment upstairs, public records show.

The theater producer, whose credits include “Hairspray,” “Wicked” and the revival of “La Cage Aux Folles,” is a longtime shareholder in the Emery Roth-designed co-op. And with a list of neighbors that’s included the likes of Bono, Steven Spielberg and Rita Hayworth over the years, it’s no wonder he wasn’t anxious to move out. [more]

From left: famed Holocaust scholar Robert Jay Lifton, a bedroom inside 300 Central Park West, 300 Central Park West’s exterior, the living room at 157 West 87th Street and the building’s exterior

A combination of two rarely available El Dorado apartments — one of them the former home of famed Holocaust scholar Robert Jay Lifton — has already generated a near-asking-price offer since hitting the market last week, brokers said. Cathy Taub, an executive vice president at Stribling & Associates, has listed Lifton’s old stomping grounds at 300 Central Park West for $7.2 million. The eight-room co-op, 7G, is now owned by one of the richest families in the country, the MacArthurs, according to broker sources. The unit can be sold individually, or for $13.4 million, combined with the adjacent apartment to create a 15-room spread. Also, a townhouse that hit the market today for $4.95 million comes with a waterfall. The four-story brownstone at 157 West 87th Street is listed with Vandenberg, the Townhouse Experts. Click here for more.

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Some renderings of 60 Orchard and Elizabeth Stribling

A seven-unit boutique condominium at 60 Orchard Street between Grand and Hester streets has launched sales on the Lower East Side. Stribling Marketing Associates is marketing the building, which expects move-ins by April. The building is comprised entirely of two-bedroom, two-bathroom units, which range in size from 1,218 square feet to 1,468 square feet. The units each include a gas fireplace, terrace and floor-to-ceiling windows. TRD [more]

Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick and 88 Central Park West (building photo: PropertyShark)

The rumors surrounding Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick’s real estate escapades can be laid to rest, according to the New York Observer, after word emerged that the couple — and its growing family — has nabbed an eight-bedroom, five-bathroom apartment in 88 Central Park West. The unit, once the home of Laurie Tisch, hit the market for $25 million in August, before dropping its asking price to $21.5 million recently. [more]

Inside the unit at 998 Fifth Avenue and agent Cornelia Zagat Eland of Stribling & Associates

The building that Guggenheims and Vanderbilts have called home is ready to welcome a new resident.

A roughly 5,000-square-foot co-op at 998 Fifth Avenue, designed by McKim, Mead & White, the architecture team behind the much-lauded original Pennsylvania Station, has hit the market for $24 million, even as a pricier unit there owned by private equity investor Steven Rattner languishes without a buyer, according to public records. [more]