Real estate billionaire Tamir Sapir has rented a waterfront Southampton compound for the summer, the New York Post reported. The estate — two homes on a bluff with stairs to the beach — includes a pool, two spas overlooking the bay, a tennis court, two cabanas and a generator. The main house has 10 bedrooms and seven and a half bathrooms. The property was formerly owned by investor Andrew Farkas and was listed for $260,000 from Memorial Day through Labor Day. [more]

New York could soon witness an invasion by real estate investment CIM Group, according to a recent profile of the company by the New York Observer. Started in 1994, CIM Group already has thousands of properties in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Dallas, but has bided its time before swooping into the New York market.

Now is the time, it seems. As The Real Deal previously reported, CIM bought Harry Macklowe’s distressed Drake Hotel site for $305 million in January and it has bought Tamir Sapir’s William Beaver House, a stake in 11 Madison Avenue and partnered with Trump Soho. [more]

Developer Tamir Sapir and the William Beaver House

The distressed sale of the unsold apartments in William Beaver House — a 47-story condominium in the Financial Distrcit that was just bailed out by the CIM Group — has led to a sharp drop in asking prices and refunds for potential buyers, the Wall Street Journal reported. CIM took control of 209 unsold units at the William Street condo and has now filed an amendment to the offering plan cutting combined asking prices by $91.8 million. CIM also indicated they might rent out some or all of the units, as The Real Deal reported. [more]

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]

Paula Del Nunzio and the Duke Semans Mansion

A commission dispute over the most expensive single residential purchase of 2010 has been settled, and Brown Harris Stevens brokers Paula Del Nunzio and Shirley Miller are now getting an undisclosed amount for their role in the $44 million sale of Tampir Sapir’s Duke Semans Mansion on Fifth Avenue, according to the Post. Sapir sold the 19,500-square-foot property to billionaire Carlos Slim earlier this year — two days after Del Nunzio and Miller’s exclusive listing agreement expired. [more]

11 Madison Avenue and Tamir Sapir

Los Angeles-based investment firm CIM Group has picked up an equity stake in yet another Sapir Organization-developed property, 11 Madison Avenue, according to the Wall Street Journal. The news comes on the heels of CIM’s deal to purchase a stake in both the Trump Soho and William Beaver House. CIM is buying the property, which overlooks Madison Square Park and serves as the headquarters for Credit Suisse, for an undisclosed amount. [more]

William Beaver House and Andre Balazs
Another iStar-backed Sapir Organization project is getting a shot in the arm from Los Angeles-based CIM Group. According to the Post, CIM has purchased the $60 million face-value loan on 209 unsold condominiums at the Financial District’s William Beaver House for an undisclosed price. It’s unclear whether iStar will maintain a stake in the project, designed by Andre Balazs at 15 William Street. Last week, CIM helped Sapir and partner Bayrock Group pay down iStar’s debt on their Trump Soho condominium-hotel. [Post] [more]

From left: Andre Balazs and Tamir Sapir

William Beaver House, the 47-story, 333-unit FiDi condominium that’s faced numerous legal and fiscal woes since its development in 2008, has yet another creditor on its tail, according to Curbed. Lender iStar is now seeking to foreclose on the building’s remaining 209 unsold units, and has filed suit against developer Tamir Sapir and partner SDS Investments. Famed hotelier co-developer Andre Balazs was not named in the suit, according to court documents. The move comes on the heels of a $130 million suit filed earlier this month by a Blackstone Group fund, which alleged that Sapir had defaulted on the loan used to develop William Beaver House. [Curbed]

[more]

Tamir Sapir and the William Beaver House

Billionaire developer Tamir Sapir is facing a $130 million lawsuit from a fund controlled by the Blackstone Group, alleging he defaulted on a multi-million-dollar loan used to develop the William Beaver House condominium in the Financial District.

GSO Re Onshore, the fund managed by Blackstone subsidiary GSO Capital Partners, filed suit Monday against Sapir individually in New York State Supreme Court, seeking a judgment on the $66 million loan that he guaranteed and then failed to repay by the November 2009 maturity date.

“GSO RE would not have made the loan to SDS William Street absent Sapir’s personal and unconditional promise to repay the loan set forth in the guarantee,” wrote Kobre & Kim attorney Elizabeth Wolstein, who is representing the fund.

The lawsuit alleges that as of November 2009 Sapir owed $48.7 million in interest, on top of the $66 million in principal. Another $15.7 million in new interest is now due, resulting in the $130 million claim for summary judgment. [more]

Tamir Sapir, head of the Sapir Organization, and the Duke Semans mansion

Tamir Sapir has placed the Duke Semans mansion, a 20,000-square-foot monolith at 1009 Fifth Avenue near 82nd Street, on the market for $50 million — $10 million more than the real estate mogul paid for it four years ago. The mansion, which dates back to 1901, currently houses a doctor’s office, a penthouse duplex and a five-story home, according to Curbed. Sapir, the head of the Sapir Organization, had reportedly planned to use the space to store and display his vast collection of ivory carvings.
[more]