Toll Brothers CEO Doug YearlyFresh off reporting $17 million in second-quarter profits and a 51 percent year-over-year increase in orders, Toll Bothers CEO Doug Yearly reported that it’s been a “great spring” for builders and the luxury market in a CNBC appearance yesterday afternoon (see the video after the jump). [more]

From left: 1108 and 1110 Park Avenue

Typically a buyer of pre-assembled lots, Toll Brothers is wading in unchartered territory with its development plans at Park Avenue between 89th and 90th streets. The Wall Street Journal reported the firm’s latest trouble at the location comes from residents on the block who have doubled down their efforts to block the project by pushing to designate the very buildings on the site as landmarks.

Toll acquired two townhouses at 1108 and 1110 Park Avenue in March for $29.5 million, and have been working to demolish the circa-1856 structures to erect a new development. [more]

From left: 1108 Park Avenue, 1110 Park Avenue and 1112 Park Avenue (credit: PropertyShark)

With the new Toll Brothers purchase of an Upper East Side townhouse and its reported plans to buy an adjacent property, neighborhood residents are trying to stop Toll from staking its claims, Curbed reported. According to neighborhood rumors, the developer plans to bring a 15-story building where the two properties currently stand at 1110 Park Avenue and at 1108 Park Avenue, and residents who live in a neighboring building say the new structure would block their windows. [more]

Toll Brothers CEO Douglas Yearley

Toll Brothers CEO Douglas Yearley said on CNBC yesterday that he doesn’t buy the 10- and 20-city composites of the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price indices, released yesterday which are losing ground.

As The Real Deal reported yesterday, there was a 34 percent decline bewteen the peak of the market in 2006 and January 2012, throwing home prices back to early 2003 levels. (See video after the jump).

From left: Brooklyn Bridge Park, Barry Sternlicht, chairman of Starwood Capital, Stephen Benjamin, principal at Dermot Company, and Robert Toll, president of Toll Brothers

The contenders to redevelop Brooklyn Bridge Park’s residential and hotel components have been whittled down to three from seven, sources told Crain’s.

The three with their hats still in the ring are the Dermot Company, Toll Brothers and a partnership consisting of Starwood Capital and Alloy Development, Crain’s said. [more]

A rendering of the tower

After more than a decade in the works, a Christian de Portzamparc-designed tower at 400 Park Avenue South will be built by the site’s new owners, Toll Brothers and Equity Residential, which purchased the development lot in December, the New York Observer reported.

Toll and Equity Residential decided to retain the plans laid out by the previous developer, who fell victim to the recession, because it would streamline the process of getting construction off the ground, since the design was already approved by the city. The plans call for a 40-story condominium and rental apartment tower. [more]

From left: One57 and Extell Development President Gary Barnett; the Touraine and Toll Brothers CEO Bob Toll; and 737 Park Avenue and Harry Macklowe

In an effort to increase control and decrease costs, big condominium developers are increasingly using their own sales teams for new projects rather than hiring outside brokerages to market the units, according to the Wall Street Journal.

For example, Extell Development, which relied on the Corcoran Group to market most of the condos it built throughout the last decade, has hired its own sales staff for its massive One57 development.

“To be frank, there is an awful lot of money in sales commissions and we want to get a piece of that ourselves,” Extell Development President Gary Barnett said. [more]

From left: Starwood Capital CEO Barry Sternlicht, RAL Companies CEO Robert Levine, Two Trees founder David Walentas and Brooklyn Bridge Park

Extell Development, Starwood Capital Group and Toll Brothers are just three of the seven high-profile developers vying to build a waterfront hotel and residential complex on Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The Brooklyn Bridge Park board will select among the three aforementioned proposals and ones submitted by Dumbo-based Two Trees, RAL Companies, SDS Procida and Dermot. The developers can build 170 to 225 hotel rooms and 150 to 180 residential units across two buildings no taller than 110 and 55 feet. [more]

Ron Moelis

From the November issue: In 1998, L+M Development Partners started its first affordable housing project on West 148th Street, between Adam Clayton Powell and Frederick Douglass boulevards. At the time, the vacant block was inhabited solely by boarded-up, graffiti-scrawled buildings, abandoned by their owners in the ’60s and ’70s. In the middle of the block sat P.S. 90, a Collegiate Gothic-style structure built in 1907 by architect Charles Snyder. Unused by schoolchildren for 30 years, the building’s windowpanes were broken or missing, and its stone gargoyles tarnished. Trees sprouted amid overturned desks.

This spring, a buyer paid $1.13 million for a three-bedroom combination apartment in the P.S. 90 building — restored and converted to condos by L+M. [more]

From left: 1450 Washington and Liberty HarborDevelopers that were able to weather the financial storm and secure financing for condominium projects in New Jersey are starting to see a payoff, the New York Times reported.

Buyers in condo strongholds, such as Hoboken, have returned to a market place that has experienced little new construction. So new developments, especially those that are priced for value, are being absorbed quickly.

For example, the Toll Brothers’ latest project, the 156-unit 1450 Washington, has signed contracts for 45 units and deposits for eight more, even though construction isn’t complete and the sales office doesn’t open until next week. [more]