Eric Anton and 110 Amity StreetA Long Island College Hospital building at 110 Amity Street in Cobble Hill will be converted into a condominium building as part of a controversial development plan, the Brooklyn Paper reported. The landmarked Lamm Institute building and three adjacent lots at Amity and Henry streets sold to a group of investors for $6 million, according to broker Eric Anton of Eastern Consolidated, and the new owners intend to transform it into three luxury units, Cobble Hill blog reported. In 2007, the hospital sold the land for $6.1 to Manhattan-based Time Equities, which planned to convert the mansion into eight apartments and construct six, single family townhouses…. [more]

Time Equities has purchased a pair of adjacent Murray Hill townhouses for $3.65 million, the company announced yesterday. The four-story buildings, at 153 and 155 East 37th Street, were converted to rental apartments in the late 1950s and now contain 17 one-bedroom units. Francis Greenburger, chairman of Time Equities, said the acquisition represents a push to add to the company’s residential portfolio as the economy improves. TRD… [more]

The Lamm Institute at 110 Amity Street went into contract last week for $3.6 together with its three neighboring lots on Henry Street, which went for $2.4 million, sources told Brownstoner. The Cobble Hill properties, marketed together as a package, were at one point supposed to be developed by Time Equities, which purchased them from LICH, and they were then on and off the market. As of November, they were asking $6.4 million. Itwa not immediately clear who the buyer is. Eastern Consolidated, the properties’ listing agent, said this morning that they could not comment on whether or not a deal has been signed. [Brownstoner]
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A Feng Shui chart (click to enlarge)

Feng shui — the Chinese system of beliefs that governs building design, the calendar and numbers, and which is followed by people in other cultures, especially in East Asia — is playing more of a role in real estate deals, as Asian buyers are populating the market, said Michael Rudder, a broker at Time Equities. Feng shui has been used in the past as well, The Real Deal reported in a webcast, with brokers using unconventional methods, including a cleansing ritual used by a feng shui consultant to help sell apartments. Rudder — who first encountered feng shui in 2007 — said that since the number of Asian buyers and lessees in New York has surged this year, he and other brokers are learning just how influential it can be, the New York Times reported. Buyers often come equipped with elaborate feng shui kits to measure a property, said Rudder. With the commercial market in New York still soft, Rudder said almost all of his recent sales of office condominiums have been to foreign buyers, especially those based in Asia, where the economy is booming. “They have this huge appetite for office condos,” he said, and since they don’t want to pay rent, he has redirected his marketing plan to accommodate them. [NYT]

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The floorplan for Shulsky’s unit in 812 Fifth Avenue (click image for larger version)

Rena Shulsky, the real estate magnate and environmental activist, has put her 812 Fifth Avenue penthouse duplex back on the market, with a new broker and a freshly chopped price.

Time Equities’ Javier Lattanzio now has the listing, and has priced it at $9.9 million. The three-bedroom duplex co-op unit was previously on the market with Ariel Tirosh and Peter Schwartz from Prudential Douglas Elliman, who listed it at $11.75 million last year, then dropped the price to $10.75 million this January before taking it off the market in early April.

Shulsky is the CEO of longtime New York City commercial developer Shire Realty and co-founder of the non-profit organization Green Seal. She originally purchased the three-bedroom apartment in 2007 for $9.23 million, according to city documents. The eight-room spread, with both city and park views, occupies the top two floors of the building and features a wraparound terrace.
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Sunset Park’s Federal Building No. 2, the former Navy warehouse near the waterfront, could be the largest vacant building for sale in the city at 1.1 million square feet. The city’s Economic Development Corporation, which is trying to turn the property into an affordable manufacturing space for the city’s displaced industrial tenants, issued a request for proposals in December and has since received six bids from parties including the Clarett Group and Industry City Associates, ranging from $500,000 to $10 million. But between extensive and necessary renovations, zoning restrictions and property taxes of $1 million per year, taking on the 94-year-old structure will prove difficult for whoever winds up with the keys. Under Industry City’s proposal, the city’s idea of leasing space to light manufacturers would be expanded to include technology start-ups and art studios, in order to stir up enough interested tenants. The last time the federal government tried to sell the building was in 2006, when the winning bidder, Time Equities, withdrew from the deal after spending $1.5 million in engineering and architectural fees to create the plans because of economic concerns. Time Equities did not submit another proposal this time around, said chairman Francis Greenburger, because “our reading of the market hasn’t really changed.”
[NYT]

Source: Time Equities

The dollar volume of office condominium sales in Manhattan slipped by nearly a third last year to its lowest level since 2005, a report released today by condo developer Time Equities shows.

The value of condos sold fell to $158 million in 2009, the weakest year since 2005 when just $49 million sold, the report, which covers 2009 sales data, shows. The volume in 2008 was $233 million.

The total amount of square feet sold fell by 42 percent to barely 220,000 last year from over 379,000 in 2008. As of the end of 2009, there were 8.2 million square feet of commercial condos in 76 buildings, Time Equities data show.

The report’s author Michael Rudder, director of sales and leasing for Time Equities, said the decline was representative of the broader sales market.
The drop, however, was not as steep as the overall 72 percent fall in Manhattan building sales volume last year as reported last month by commercial sales firm Massey Knakal Realty Services. … [more]

With fewer hotel rooms under construction, hotel developers hope the reduction in new rooms will help to revive the hospitality industry.

The October 2009 STR/TWR/Dodge Construction Pipeline Report noted that the total active U.S. hotel development pipeline includes 4,089 projects comprising 435,265 rooms.

This represents a 32.7 percent decrease in the number of rooms in the total active pipeline — which includes projects in the construction, final planning and planning stages, but not in the pre planning stage — compared to October 2008.

“The number of rooms in construction fell 41.2 percent from the same time last year,” said Duane Vinson, vice president at STR. A number of planned hotels have ground to a halt in Manhattan including the Lower East Side’s 180 Ludlow Street.
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Rendering of 93 Nevins Street

The City Planning Commission voted unanimously today to approve the new Food Retail Expansion to Support Health zoning amendment. Meanwhile, sales have launched at 93 Nevins Street, an environmentally friendly townhouse development in Boerum Hill, and at at Seven Dutch Street in the Financial District. Click here for more…. [more]

The global recession and the credit crisis are having an effect on new
hotel construction throughout the U.S., especially in New York City.
Total projects under construction in the U.S. have fallen 20.1 percent
since last year, with a corresponding 27.2 percent drop in the number
of rooms, according to the June 2009 STR/TWR/Dodge Construction
Pipeline Report released exclusively to HotelNewsNow.com, a division of Smith Travel Research…. [more]