Renderings of the planned hotel-condo (credit: Rogers Marvel Architects)

Some Brooklyn Bridge Park advocates are outraged that Pier 1 housing complex plans call for private ground-floor terraces.

The Toll Brothers- and Starwood Capital-developed 159-unit housing complex and 200-room hotel planned for the park pier are expected to help support the park’s $16 million annual budget. [more]

From left: Lightstone CEO David Lichtenstein and a rendering of Toll Brothers’ plans for the site

Lightstone Group’s ambitious plans to build 700 residential units near the Gowanus Canal, on a site Toll Brothers was reprimanded for trying to develop two years ago by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program, has met some resistance (note: correction appended). The New York Post reported that Brooklyn residents met with the developer to voice their concerns. [more]

From left: Lightstone CEO David Lichtenstein and a rendering of Toll Brothers' plans for the site

On the same day The Real Deal reported Toll Brothers expressed interest in a trio of Manhattan buildings, Brownstoner reported that one of its old development sites is being examined by another developer. The Bond Street lot off the Gowanus Canal where Toll once planned a more than 600,000-square-foot mixed-use development is now being examined by the Lightstone Group. [more]

From left: 346 Broadway, 49-51 Chambers Street and 22 Reade Street

In the three months since the Economic Development Corporation issued requests for proposals for a package of city-owned buildings, some of New York’s top real estate firms — Vornado Realty Trust, Toll Brothers and Kushner Companies, among them — have toured the properties. Should those or other companies wish to bid on the Lower Manhattan properties, their proposals are due today.

The 750,000-square-foot, three-building package is composed of 346 Broadway, 49-51 Chambers Street and 22 Reade Street. [more]

Brooklyn Bridge Park

The revamped Brooklyn Bridge Park has given an additional boost to Dumbo and Brooklyn Heights, according to the New York Post, and as new sections of the park prepare to open a wave of new real estate activity has hit the area.

A sports facility with three soccer fields will open this fall at Pier 5 of the park, Pier 2, with its basketball, handball, shuffleboard and bocce ball courts, will open next year, and by the end of 2013 the 85-acre park will be 60 percent complete. [more]

How can homebuilders be on track to have their most profitable year on record when the U.S. is still in the depths of a housing slump? A backlog of housing demand, which may herald a healthier housing market, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.

Homebuilders Lennar and Toll Brothers are showing 54 and 48 percent increases in the value of their shares in 2012, respectively. That is because nationwide the 145,000 homes available in May represents the lowest inventory on record in that last 50 years, according to analyst David Dwyer of Bloomberg Industries. [more]

1108 Park Avenue

The seller of a Park Avenue property, which Toll Brothers recently purchased for $13 million, duped an elderly man to take title to the townhouse and profit from the proceeds of the sale, according to documents filed in Manhattan Surrogate Court cited by the New York Post. The townhouse, at 1108 Park Avenue, had been owned by Joseph Bogen, who also owned Boghen Pharmacy on the Upper East Side before he died last year at age 91. Shortly after Bogen’s death his family learned that he had left his fortune, including three New York-area properties, to a Polish immigrant, Elzbieta Sztuka, who claimed Bogen had fallen in love with her. [more]

From left: Robert Toll, Barry Sternlicht and renderings of the development (credit: Mayor's office)

Recent press speculations and predictions have been confirmed: Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office today announced the selection of Toll Brothers and Starwood Capital Group to develop a 550,000-square-foot complex at Pier 1 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, which will include a 200-room luxury hotel and 159 residential units. The hotel and residential complex will rise 10 stories, and there will be a separate five-story residential building, a city press release says. [more]

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]