[Updated at 4:30 p.m.] New York-based real estate private equity and asset management firm Savanna has acquired 31 Penn Plaza, an 18-story, 444,000-square-foot, multi-tenant office building at 132 West 31st Street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, the company announced today. CoStar told Crain’s that the transaction was worth $130 million.

The building, which offers full-floor office space of about 27,000 square feet per floor, will undergo $26 million in capital improvements to update the building and lease the available office space, Savanna said, including a new front entrance and fully renovated lobby.

“The neighborhood surrounding Penn Station and Madison Square Garden is a growing mixed-use submarket with plans for millions of square feet in office, retail, residential and hotel development over the next few years,” said Christopher Schlank, a managing partner of Savanna. “The improvements we have planned for the building should position 31 Penn Plaza as one of the upper tier buildings in the neighborhood.” — Katherine Clarke [more]

Clockwise from top left: Nir Meir, Ziel Feldman and Ilan Rubenstein of
HFZ Capital Group; Ziel Feldman and Wendy Maitland and Reid Price of
Town Residential; Ziel Feldman and Elie Pariente, principal at Synergy New York
and Stuart Sussman of Core and William Bish of Corcoran Sunshine
Marketing

HFZ Capital Group head Ziel Feldman held a party on the rooftop of the Setai Wall Street last night, along with Elie Pariente principal at the building’s marketing firm Synergy New York, to celebrate its recent return to the market (see photos above). The Zamir Equities-developed project at 40 Broad Street in the Financial District was converted to a 159-unit condominium in 2009, but Zamir defaulted on the $147 million loan attached to the building in 2010. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman halted closings to investigate the financing situation and the building was taken off the market.

The financial trouble was preceded by construction turmoil that caused some initial buyers to back out of their contracts, and a lawsuit by the Setai Group brand alleging “substandard quality.” – Adam Fusfeld Comments

After taking a hiatus late last year, sales at the Setai Wall Street condominium are resuming with a 16 percent price cut and a new marketing team, Synergy New York. Crain’s reported the 159-unit condo conversion is about 60 percent sold, but the developer, Zamir Equities, agreed to lower the price to $750,000 for one-bedrooms, $930,000 for two-bedrooms and $1.2 million for penthouses “to match today’s prices.”

Setai Wall Street was at the center of financial problems last year, as Zamir defaulted on its $147 million loan, and the lender, Irish Anglo Bank, sold it to HFZ Capital Group and Acro Group for $80 million earlier this year. [more]

Ziel Feldman and the Setai

HFZ, led by Ziel Feldman, and Israel’s Acro Group, have closed on an
$80 million deal with Anglo Irish Bank to buy the note at the Setai
condominium at 40 Broad Street.
Anglo Irish, the struggling Irish lender, put its $147 million
construction loan up for sale in 2010 after the sponsor, Zamir
Equities, defaulted on the debt.
Zamir completed the conversion of the 34-story office building into a
condo and sold around 50 percent of the units, but former Attorney
General Andrew Cuomo allowed buyers to back out of their contracts and
halted future sales. Comments

Zamir principal Asher Zamir and the Setai Wall Street lobby

An investor in the troubled Setai Wall Street condominium project in the Financial District filed a lawsuit against the developer and its lenders, including Anglo Irish Bank, to try and block the transfer of the deed which is being offered as part of a sale of the defaulted $150 million note.

Manhattan-based real estate firm Delshah Group filed suit in New York State Supreme Court, seeking a court order to block the transfer of a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure for Zamir Equities’ Setai Wall Street, at 40 Broad Street. The deed transfer would follow the sale of the defaulted note. The note has not yet sold, court records indicate.

Delshah filed the lawsuit Dec. 20, its third lawsuit at the property, claiming it is the largest member of the entity that controls the deed and does not consent to a deed-in-lieu. [more]

Zamir Equities is selling off its leasehold on the 43,000-square-foot Fifth Avenue building that houses retailer Quicksilver on the ground floor, sources told the Post. The 10-story property, which sits between 48th and 49th streets and has an address of 587 Fifth Avenue, is 95 percent leased, including the few floors taken up by Zamir’s jewelry business. Zamir’s leasehold extends until 2079 and Jane Goldman owns the land beneath the building. [more]

In a continued effort to unload its New York City real estate holdings, the battered Anglo Irish Bank is selling its $147 million defaulted construction loan on the Setai Wall Street condominium, the Wall Street Journal reported. The 34-story converted office building by Zamir Equities was completed earlier this year and is around 50 percent sold; 40 percent of the units have closed and another 10 percent are in contract, despite many buyers having backed out of their contracts due to construction delays, according to the developer. [more]

At left: Gaia managing partners Amir Yerushalmi and Danny Friedman and Park River Properties’ Lenny Sporn and Mickey Roth at their new office opening. At right: Lenny Sporn with Rabbi Yishayahu Yosef Pinto at the office.

It’s been less than three months since Prudential Douglas Elliman powerbrokers Mickey Roth and Lenny Sporn departed the firm to start their own venture, but the Roth-Sporn brand appears to be holding strong, even under their new company name, Park River Properties.

The freshly-minted firm, which organizes foreign buyers into purchase groups for bulk deals in new development condominiums in New York City, is planning a slew of international outposts for its forthcoming expansion. In addition to the existing Park River office in Tel Aviv, Israel, a branch is coming to Rome next month, Sporn said. He is hoping to open a total of five new overseas offices over the course of the year, and is eyeing Japan and India for two of them.

Park River, which launched in December as part of one-year-old Gaia Real Estate, a distressed investment firm, also moved into a permanent U.S. headquarters this week with Gaia and Gaia’s latest acquisition, Vision Property Management, at the Carnegie Hall Tower at 152 West 57th Street. Park River currently employs 15 agents in New York and also has plans to open two more Manhattan branches over the next six months. [more]

Investors in the Setai, a condo and spa development at 40 Broad Street, have filed a lawsuit against the building’s developers for understating the costs of the project by nearly $24 million. In addition to permitting construction overruns, the suit alleges, Zamir Equities conducted a “sham” closing in order to meet a June 2008 deadline for at least one condo purchase. The closed unit was sold to an affiliate of the developers, the suit claims, triggering a costly slew of lawsuits. Zamir also allegedly diverted construction funds from the project to a restaurant the company had leased on the ground floor. The plaintiff in the case, the DelShah Group, invested $4.185 million in the project in March 2007, and is now seeking punitive damages and reimbursement for legal costs. [NYO]

After construction delays and purchaser lawsuits, the posh Setai New York condominium has joined a growing number of city projects releasing buyers from their contracts. An amendment to the offering plan dated July 8 states that buyers at the 40 Broad Street condo conversion in the Financial District have been granted the right of rescission, meaning that they may walk away from their contracts and get their deposits back. The amendment, obtained by The Real Deal, states that buyers have 15 days to exercise that option. Purchasers learned of the change when they received a letter — addressed to all of the project’s buyers — and a copy of the amendment by an attorney representing the sponsor, 40 Broad LLC. The building is being developed by a partnership between family-owned real estate company Zamir Equities and the Setai Group, known for hotel and residential development in Miami. [more]