One Madison Park and Tamir Shemesh

After being hit with a foreclosure suit this week, sales have halted at One Madison Park, according to Curbed. After defaulting on their mortgage, Ira Shapiro and Marc Jacobs, the developers of the 60-story tower, were served with the suit, which claims they owe their lender upwards of $200 million. Tamir Shemesh, the Prudential Douglas Elliman agent who has been marketing the listings at One Madison, said that the foreclosure proceedings have forced the sales hiatus. “The developer can’t engage buyers with contract of sales,” Shemesh said.

Developers Ira Shapiro and Marc Jacobs have defaulted on their mortgage interest payments at once-condo-hot-spot One Madison Park, the unfinished 60-story tower on East 23rd Street, according to lender iStar Tara. The lender has filed foreclosure papers in Manhattan Supreme Court, saying that the developers and their Slazer Enterprises owe the company more than $200 million and have committed “numerous breaches of [their] obligations under the mortgages.” The property, with its rocky sales record, has been hit with a number of lawsuits from other lenders and buyers over the past several months. According to the latest iStar suit, judgments, liens and lawsuits pending against One Madison Park total one dozen. The company wants to foreclose on the property, where sources told the Post that the and marketing office has been closed for the past week, and sell it. The foreclosure suit will not affect the condos already sold with the approval of iStar, according to the filing. [Post]

From the February issue: During the real estate boom, it was common and even encouraged for brokers to buy units in the new development buildings they were marketing. After all, what endorsement could be better than a six-figure down payment? But now that buyers are scarce, a number of problems with brokers purchasing units have surfaced, from unethical dilemmas with flipping to price inflation to whether brokers can be considered “bona fide” purchasers. These issues often went unnoticed when prices were roaring upward, but can threaten a condo development’s very existence in today’s litigious environment. “In the past, there was absolutely no issue because these buildings were sold out, and who cares what the broker did?” said Anne Salisbury, an attorney in the real estate litigation group at Guzov Ofsink. “Now that you’ve got empty units, it can become an issue.” For years, marketing firms urged their brokers to buy units in the new development buildings they were tasked with selling. “It’s a sort of stamp of approval for the building,” said Jennifer Lee, the director of new business development at aptsandlofts?.com, who noted that the brokerage encourages its agents to purchase property. [more]

One Madison Park

Despite recent rumors that One Madison Park was cleaning up with a $10 million single-unit payday for apartment 42A — a sale that would have come out to more than $3,000 per square foot — a city filing has come to burst that bubble. The scandal-plagued development at 23 East 22nd Street saw 42A go for just $6.31 million, Curbed said, citing city records, showing a less impressive $1,900 per square foot sales figure. The development, no stranger to controversy, has had a rocky sales record, with Brown Harris Stevens agents Wendy Maitland and Wilbur Gonzalez being replaced late last year by Prudential Douglas Elliman agent Tamir Shemesh. Later, the developers at One Madison Park became the target of lawsuits from several high-profile investors, including former Yankees chairman Harvey Schiller and Maitland, alleging that they had failed to pay back numerous loans and deposits. [more]

Brown Harris Stevens agent Wendy Maitland and One Madison Park

The developers of Flatiron District condominium One Madison Park are facing a flurry of lawsuits alleging they failed to pay back millions of dollars in loans and deposits to a number of high-profile investors, including Brown Harris Stevens’ Wendy Maitland, the building’s original listing broker, and Charles Milite, president of the Gotham City Restaurant Group. Maitland, a senior vice president at BHS, filed suit against Park Madison Associates in New York State Supreme Court Dec. 22, alleging that Ira Shapiro, who co-developed the building with investor Marc Jacobs (not the designer) under the name Slazer Enterprises, asked to borrow from her $300,000 in August 2009 to help pay for unpaid mechanics liens on the property. Shapiro told Maitland that he would receive money from another source, so Maitland agreed to lend the funds if the money was repaid within 24 hours, according to the complaint. Maitland made two $100,000 wire transfers into Shapiro’s account between Aug. 19 and Aug. 20, the complaint says, and then made a third wire transfer of $100,000 to Five Star Electric, an Ozone Park-based contractor. An official from Five Star confirmed that it was a contractor at the building, but did not have any further comment on the mechanic’s liens or the case. [more]

The CEO of DDG Partners, Joe McMillan, at 41 Bond Street, which is under construction.

From the January issue: A development team on Bond Street is placing a $34 million bet on the market.
The savvy new investment partnership is making the risky gamble
that by the time they are ready to sell, the condo units they are
building at 41 Bond Street will fetch at least around what comparable
apartments did at the top of the market in 2007. In one of the few high-profile land acquisitions of the downturn,
in September, DDG Partners bought the vacant land on which the firm is
now erecting a nine-story condo, for just over $9 million. The firm is
planning to spend approximately $25 million more on construction,
according to Joe McMillan, the CEO of DDG.
The project will add to the string of boutique buildings already
lining the street, including its most high-profile condo, 40 Bond
Street by Ian Schrager, along with the Deborah Berke-designed 48 Bond
and the stone-and-glass 25 Bond. more

[more]

Douglas Heddings of the Heddings Property Group at Charles Rutenberg Realty; Tamir Shemesh at Prudential Douglas Elliman; Michael Signet at Bond New York Real Estate; Fabienne Lecole at the Corcoran Group; Leigh Zaph at Manhattan Homes; Shebrelle Hunter-Green at the Corcoran Group; and Rena Goldstein at Halstead Property

The Real Deal asked a number of residential real estate agents what the strangest thing is that they’ve seen at an open house. The responses ran the gamut from breast feeding to naked people to a dog taking a house tour. Here is a sampling of what the agents have encountered:

Douglas Heddings, associate broker and founder of the Heddings Property Group at Charles Rutenberg Realty: How about a five-year old breast feeding? Here are some less shocking examples: A drying rack full of panties in a living room, a toilet seat that was taped closed so that open house attendees could not use the facilities, of course the [Upper West Side] robbery [of an open house Heddings was hosting] that was highly publicized and a spray painted wall saying “monkey nipple” on a teenager’s bedroom wall, which the seller refused to remove. Click here for more. Compiled by Lauren Elkies
[more]

Top to bottom: Tamir Shemesh of Prudential Douglas Elliman, Wilbur Gonzalez and Wendy Maitland of Brown Harris Stevens. At right: One Madison Park

It looks like there may be some disagreement about who fired whom at One Madison Park.

Brown Harris Stevens said in a statement released to The Real Deal today that it terminated the contract at the luxury condominium building, not the developers, Ira Shapiro and Marc Jacobs.

“Brown Harris Stevens On Site Marketing and Sales has terminated its exclusive sales agency agreement for One Madison as of Nov. 20, 2009,” the statement said.

By contrast, the developers claimed through a spokesperson that their exclusive marketing contract with Brown Harris Stevens had expired, enabling them to bring on a new marketing firm, Prudential Douglas Elliman. Tamir Shemesh, a managing director
at Elliman, is handling sales at the project and is acting as a spokesperson for the developer.
[more]

One Madison Park and Tamir Shemesh, managing director at Prudential Douglas Elliman, who will be handling sales at the building

Not long after representing celebrity client Jude Law in leasing a Greenwich Village apartment, which ended up being visible from New York University dorms, Brown Harris Stevens has found itself in the middle of another gaffe. The firm had lost its role as exclusive broker for condominium One Madison Park, which has been attracting celebs, after two of its brokers, Wendy Maitland and Wilbur Gonzalez, reportedly agreed to buy units there and then flipped them for profit. Their actions, while not illegal, are considered in poor taste and perhaps even unethical, the New York Post’s Jennifer Gould Keil reported. To add insult to injury, Prudential Douglas Elliman, considered a major rival of BHS, has been tapped to manage the development from here on out. Tamir Shemesh, managing director at Prudential Douglas Elliman, will be handling the sales, he told The Real Deal.

Mickey Roth

Prudential Douglas Elliman brokers Meir “Mickey” Roth and Lenny Sporn have left the brokerage giant to start a new firm.

Roth and Sporn, formerly partners in the Roth-Sporn Group, parted ways with Elliman two weeks ago and are in the process of launching Park River Properties, which will focus on organizing international buyers into purchase groups for new development condominium units.

The new company, temporarily headquartered at 117 East 57th Street, is slated to formally launch in January, Roth told The Real Deal by telephone today. The company currently has three employees in addition to Roth and Sporn, including two based in Israel, where they expect to recruit most of their buyers at first, he said.

“This is a unique concept and something we’re very excited about,” Roth said, adding that a couple members of Elliman’s Roth-Sporn group, which previously had four members, have joined the venture. [more]