Donald Trump and the Trump Soho at center
The Trump Soho condominium-hotel has filed suit against its insurer, Affiliated FM, for allegedly rejecting its claim for Hurricane Sandy-related issues, and also accused ConEdison of gross negligence, Crain’s reported.
The suit could be the first to test the power utility’s claim that a flood at one of its substations, rather than an explosion, caused the blackout south of Midtown, allowing insurers to dodge liability for Sandy-related claims. [more]
254 Park Avenue South
254 Park Avenue South apartment sets a building price record. Cohen Commercial buys Bronx retail spot for $11.4 million. Trump Soho condo up for sale for $1.9 million — in Bitcoins. Brooklyn park dedicated to late Beastie Boys member. Housing recovery lends hand to job market. Read these stories and more after the jump.
Bitcoins
Here’s more evidence Bitcoin isn’t going anywhere. We’ve found a guy who claims to be putting his Trump Soho condo up for sale. And he will only take payment in Bitcoin.
Later today, he will advertise the property exclusively on BitPremier, the first-ever online Bitcoin exchange exclusively for luxury goods. The site launches today. [more]
From left: Griffin Court and One Museum Mile
Brokers have long known that staging homes with works of art can help entice a buyer. Now, developers are also getting in on the art game, the New York Post reported. [more]
A section of the Department of Buildings map with the Trump Soho circled in black. The key shows that the building is listed as a mixed residential and commercial building
The Trump Soho is a something of a hybrid: a 391-unit condominium tower with restrictions on how long owners can occupy their apartments—a compromise designed to allow developers Donald Trump, the Bayrock Group and the Sapir Organization to build the project, despite the lot’s commercial zoning.
But a Department of City Planning map, uncovered yesterday by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, lists the parcel at 246 Spring Street as a “mixed residential and commercial building.” The discovery has reignited the non-profit’s doubts about the legality of the luxury tower, and what it sees as the city’s special treatment of the developer. [more]
From left: Sara Clephane, Fredrik Eklund and John Gomes
Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Eklund Gomes team, led by “Million Dollar Listing New York” star Fredrik Elkund and his business partner, John Gomes, has announced the hiring of its newest member: Sara Clephane, a luxury broker who headed up sales at Trump Soho.
Clephane joined the team this week, after marketing Donald Trump’s downtown tower since 2006. Her arrival marks further expansion for the Eklund Gomes team, which has grown significantly in the last year thanks in part to the publicity the hit Bravo show has garnered for Eklund, who appeared on the show’s first season and is currently filming the second season. [more]
From left: French President Francois Hollande, Amy Williamson, vice president of sales at the Trump Soho, and the Trump Soho
Move over Russians — there’s a new nationality set to make its mark on the city’s residential real estate market. According to the New York Times, the French are increasingly looking to invest in New York City real estate following the election of Socialist Francois Hollande as president earlier this month. During his campaign, Hollande promised to tax income over £1 million at a 75 percent clip and raise the tax rate on capital gains in an effort to lessen the country’s £1.3 trillion debt. [more]
Sapir Org. CEO Alex Sapir and Trump Soho
The Sapir Organization, the developer of Manhattan’s Trump Soho, is planning to put the hotel and its unsold condominium units on the auction block, Bloomberg News reported. The company, which developed the property with Bayrock Group at Varick and Spring streets, has hired brokerages Eastdil Secured and Jones Lang LaSalle to market the properties.
Prospective buyers will receive necessary information about the auction today, said Alex Sapir, president of the Sapir Organization; the auction will likely take place later in the spring. [more]
Ten Trump Soho buyers are getting a 90 percent refund on their deposits
after filing a suit against the Bayrock Group and the Sapir Organization
alleging they misrepresented sales figures (note: corrections appended). The New York Post reported that a federal lawsuit filed by the buyers against the building’s sponsors was settled yesterday, and they will get 90 percent of the $3.16 million in deposits they combined to have put down on $16.914 million worth of apartments. The buyers claim to have been told as many as 60 percent of the units were sold, when at the time just 16 percent of the hotel-condo units in the building, at 246 Spring Street, were actually sold. Adam Leitman Bailey represented the buyers. … [more]
Park Tower Group, one of the first New York developers to see potential in the Brooklyn waterfront, is brushing off plans for 10 luxury apartment buildings with 4,000 units on a 20-acre plot of land at the old Greenpoint Lumber Exchange, which it purchased almost a decade ago, the New York Observer reported. At least one of the towers should break ground at the site, which is currently used for construction storage and movie lots, by 2012.
Park Tower, which is headed up by developer George Klein, had delayed the project during the recession and recently shifted its focus at the site to rentals from condominiums to more easily find financing. It hopes to secure construction loans in the coming months. … [more]
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