Ira Shapiro, Cevdet Caner, Ziel Feldman and One Madison Park

The developers of the One Madison Park condominium said they expect to formally submit an official rescue plan for the troubled project within the next two weeks, according to federal bankruptcy court documents obtained by The Real Deal.
The developers, including Ira Shapiro and billionaire investor Cevdet Caner, have been negotiating with HFZ Capital’s Ziel Feldman on a plan to buy the luxury tower, which is at 23 East 22nd Street, for $165 million, plus pay more than $40 million to complete construction on the building.
“Substantial negotiations regarding a plan have taken place over the past six weeks and the parties have made significant progress in narrowing the open issues,” wrote attorney Erin Fay, who represents the developers. They wrested control of the project from Shapiro earlier this year. “The debtors anticipate receiving committee comments to the draft plan and wrapping up negotiations on the remaining open issues within a week or two.” [more]

CIM principal and co-founder Richard Ressler, 47 East 34th Street (source: PropertyShark) and iStar CEO Jay Sugarman

Istar Financial has finalized a deal to sell the $84 million senior mortgage debt at 47 East 34th Street to CIM
Group, after the court issued a final judgment against the previous borrowers Esplanade Capital, according
to court records and financial documents obtained by The Real Deal.

Documents filed with the city Department of Finance on Wednesday show that CIM Group acquired the
loan from iStar on May 13, and court documents in Manhattan Supreme Court show that the Los Angeles-
based firm has filed documents to replace iStar as the plaintiff if the foreclosure case.

“My expectation is there will be an auction before the end of the summer,” said a source familiar with the
legal proceedings. [more]

The foreclosed, lawsuit-laden, incomplete tower that stands at One Madison Avenue scared away most of New York City’s big-name developers, except for Bruce Eichner, who reportedly placed a low-ball $45 million bid. So it came as quite a surprise last month, the Observer said, when a man intent on rising to those ranks agreed to pay $165 million to acquire the Flatiron tower. That man is Ziel Feldman, and it’s one of several risky bets the head of HFZ Capital is making in the midst of a market recovery. It started during the boom, when Feldman successfully refurbished a pre-war condo at 823 Park Avenue, and sold units for more than $2,000 per square foot. [more]

From left: 321 Lenox Avenue (credit: PropertyShark) and H&H Bagels at 639 West 46th Street

Midtown-based Delshah Capital was poised to win at auction a pre-war, 33-unit Harlem apartment building saddled with $14 million of debt, but was blocked last Thursday when the owner filed for bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, last month, Delshah, led by principal and CEO Michael Shah, was expecting to take control of the two-story H&H Bagels building at 639 West 46th Street, until the Toro family company that owns the property filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy, blocking a sale.

Such roadblocks are common for buyers of distressed debt, now wrangling with owners over who will take over the properties.

In the most recent instance, Staten Island-based real estate investor Lorenzo De Luca, through his Lenox 126 Realty, filed for Chapter 11 protection to block a foreclosure sale at the apartment building at 321 Lenox Avenue, located one
block from the popular Harlem Center mall at 125 West 125th Street. [more]

From left: Architect Costas Kondylis and Princess Katherine Karadjordjevic, developer Donald Trump, the Corcoran Group’s Pamela Liebman, Town’s Andrew Heiberger and wife Robyn, and marketing guru Louise Sunshine (credit: Clint Spaulding of patrickmcmullan.com). Click the image to see more photos.

Developer Donald Trump, who spent weeks courting the fringes of American politics in a possible presidential bid, stuck to real estate last night in brief remarks at the premier of a documentary produced by The Real Deal about the prolific and aging New York architect Costas Kondylis. (See more photos after the jump.)

Trump, who traveled the United States questioning President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, praised Kondylis — born in Africa to Greek parents — as a “great design architect.”

Kondylis was the architect on many of Trump’s buildings such as the Trump World Tower at 845 United Nations Plaza and an imposing row of residential towers that were critically panned called Riverside South, which face the Hudson River. [more]

HFZ Group principal Ziel Feldman’s presentation of a final rescue plan at One Madison Park is expected within a week, The Real Deal has learned, after he emerged as the leading bidder in a bankruptcy auction earlier this month.

Sources say the court approved another extension by the debtors, which would move the official disclosure of the plan to mid-May at the earliest, and possibly into June.

Feldman, who has been working for months behind the scenes to help move the project through bankruptcy, submitted a winning bid that would pay about $165 million to get the project out of bankruptcy court and would need at least $40 million to complete construction of the luxury tower, located at 23 East 22nd Street in the Flatiron area, according to sources familiar with the discussions. [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

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Developer Ziel Feldman may have stepped in last year to buy the note on the stalled Turtle Bay construction site at 303 East 51st Street, where a 2008 crane collapse killed seven people, but the immediate surrounding neighborhood is looking like it needs its own cash infusion in the aftermath of the tragedy. According to the Post, nine businesses around the site — near Second Avenue, between 50th and 51st streets — have become “ghostly museums” as a result of the crash. City Council member Jessica Lappin, who lives in the area, called the retail strip “moribund” and “just depressing.” Meanwhile, the construction site at the center of it all hasn’t been a source of much optimism, either. [more]

Ziel Feldman and 20 West 40th Street (building photo: PropertyShark)

Ziel Feldman’s HFZ Capital Group is trying to flip the 12,000-square-foot Bryant Park development parcel that was once slated to become the site of city’s first luxury green hotel, Crain’s reported. HFZ took title to the mortgage and deed to property for $46 million in June, and has just put it back on the market for $85 million. Peter Hausburg of Eastern Consolidated is marketing the 20 West 40th Street site, which is currently a parking lot with 189,000 square feet of development rights. The original plans for the site called for a 31-story hotel and condominium tower designed by Morris Adjmi. [Crain's] [more]

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