Development replaces demolition as borough stabilizes A market-rate future for the Bronx?
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With an ample supply of empty industrial buildings and a smattering of picturesque town homes, Mott Haven in the South Bronx would seem to have the qualities needed to be the next Williamsburg. It has a booming, though tiny, antiques district and a section of residential apartments along Bruckner Boulevard near Lincoln Place, the result of a five-block rezoning done almost a decade ago. Mott Haven’s real estate ascension is an uphill climb” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
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Far East Side to get 1000s of apts. and major science park Far from spotlight, but close to major growth” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
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Bloomberg, Ferrer running amid booming market Development big issue in mayor race” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
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Real estate pros find industry data in a variety of outlets [more]
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Properties recently placed on the market [more]
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For part-time New Yorkers those who use seasons of the year as verbs owning a pied- -terre apartment has usually required a condo building. But these “feet on the ground” can and are stomping into even the ritziest of co-ops.
In the booming residential market, where a pied- -terre is as likely to be flipped as to be lived in for a little bit of the year (their usual role), co-ops are trying to attract them. The appeal? Their usually wealthy owners, buyers who can not only afford the sales price but also the monthly upkeep costs for a place they won’t occupy year-round.
“There are co-op buildings, even on Fifth Avenue, that don’t mind a pied- -terre person,” said Dianne Van Laer, a senior vice president at Bellmarc Realty. “In fact, their boards are smart enough to know that someone who is extremely wealthy and financially qualified doesn’t just have one home.
“How great is that,” she asked, “for a co-op building to have someone who is financially qualified, wants to buy a multi-million-dollar apartment and wants to use it for a few weeks out of the year? That’s less wear and tear on the building and on the staff. And it’s great if you share a floor with a pied- -terre person because they’re never there.”
In Manhattan, pieds- -terre are best understood anecdotally as they exist more as a concept than as a physical thing, something owners do rather than buy.
“Pieds- -terre are not really an entity onto themselves, if you will,” said Sandi Schapiro, a broker with Fenwick-Keats. “In other words, you buy the apartment, and you use it in the sense that it becomes like a pied- -terre. It’s not like you’re buying a specific product called a pied- -terre.”
Condos in the tonier neighborhoods of the city Greenwich Village, the Upper East Side toward Central Park, Murray Hill have generally been the pied- -terre locales of choice, brokers say. Once you own a condo, after all, you essentially own a house that neighbors can’t meddle with as is often the case in co-ops.
The main obstacle to pieds- -terre in co-ops is fear by neighbors that the apartment will become an inn for the primary owner’s family and friends. Worse, college-age children of the owners may move in, especially in the Village and along lower Fifth Avenue because of nearby New York University. Co-ops, in fact, may require primary owners to live in their spreads for at least a year, maybe two, before renting it.
“Some co-ops, they don’t want to be considered a dormitory,” said Joe Testone, another Bellmarc broker, who recently got co-op board approval for a client’s purchase of a one-bedroom pied- -terre on the 20th floor in 2 Fifth Avenue.
If co-op boards can see past the concerns, they can find more owners like the ones Van Laer represents at 870 Fifth Avenue.
Those owners are selling for $3.7 million the classic six they’ve used as a pied- -terre. The buyers, she said, could easily do the same thing with the apartment, despite it being in a co-op next to Central Park.
“What I hope to find for the apartment,” Van Laer said, “is the same scenario in the buyer.”
Historical relics of an equine past fetching historic prices [more]
Firm shifts to 90-10 commission structure pioneered by national operator RE/MAX [more]
The Real Deal l podcast features conversation with marketer Michael Shvo [more]
Lofts, staples of Downtown living, set price record in August [more]
While it’s never easy to find a place in Manhattan, some types of apartments are harder to find than others. Big apartments for families are scarce. And apartments in new developments where many projects are in the works but only a modest number have actually hit the market appear to be in relatively limited supply, brokers say. And of course, the best spots in the best buildings are tough to snatch.
Here’s a look at what’s rare:
Family apartments
Three or more bedrooms are increasingly difficult to find everywhere, especially on the Upper East and West Sides.
Toni Haber, a senior vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman, says, “A seven- to nine-room apartment on the Upper East Side west of Third Avenue is the hardest to find right now.”
She says this is caused by lack of inventory and more affluent families staying in Manhattan because they want to cut down commuting times.
Donna Olshan of Olshan Realty says good three-bedrooms under $2.2 million are in the most demand from the buyer on the precipice of going to the suburbs.
“They want to stay in the city badly but they are getting squeezed out,” she says. “It’s hard to find a two-bedroom under $1 million, or any good quality condo under $1,200 a square foot in a decent location that doesn’t need a lot of renovation.”
New construction
With increasingly stringent co-op boards and limited supply, brokers say new condos are a much-sought commodity. There are many new projects under construction, but relatively few that are ready for occupancy.
In late August, the offering plan for Fifteen Central Park West was approved; within two days, the marketers had sent out 50 purchase contracts.
The building will have 202 apartments averaging around $4 million each, but it will be another 18 months before the building is finished.
“Buyers need to put down 15 percent on signing and another 10 percent in six months,” says Haber. “A lot of them are New Yorkers.”
Olshan says Fifteen Central Park West will deliver the large apartments that many buyers, families included, crave.
“They got a premium architect in Robert A.M. Stern and views with big floor plans,” she says.
Olshan, however, adds that Central Park West has been in a drought for over a year and Fifteen Central Park West is not going to alleviate the situation. With such demand for conventional large family-sized apartments, Olshan says the solution is often to put two apartments together.
“I did three deals in 2004 because people couldn’t find the space,” she says. “At 50 Gramercy Park North [another new project], there are 23 units, but buyers are putting half of the units together.”
Mid-priced new construction can start at $1,500 a foot, so condo buyers looking for a deal go to condos built in the 1980s and now in need of renovation. Even then, it’s hard to find a deal.
“If you look at the inventory in any category there isn’t enough,” Olshan says. “And interest rates aren’t going to rise under the prevailing conditions. People who don’t buy this fall will be priced out.”
In the best buildings
“The hardest property to find is 11 rooms and up in the 60s and 70s,” says A. Laurance Kaiser IV, president of Key-Ventures, “There are few properties in the best buildings and almost nothing on a high floor.
“Everything is death or divorce,” he adds. “When Clinton changed the tax rules, the taxes were too high, so the elderly stay in their 18-room apartments until they pass on.”
Also in the posh residence category, large townhouses in mint condition in the East 60s and 70s with traditional renovations are also very difficult to find, brokers say.
Interest rates still low and buyer demand high, but rental bidding heats up [more]
Just like a star who only needs one name, a handful of New York apartment buildings need only a number for instant recognition. Think 740.
Everything you ever wanted to know about 740 Park Avenue and probably more can be found in Michael Gross’ 740 Park: The Story of the World’s Richest Apartment Building (531 pages; Broadway Books), which hit bookstores this month. Built in 1930, the building has long housed the moneyed and illustrious, drawing names like Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, and Chrysler, serving as the childhood home of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (and built by her grandfather), and in more recent times, admitting titans like Ron Perelman, Henry Kravis, Saul Steinberg and Stephen Schwarzman.
At the hands of Gross, a New York Times best-selling author and magazine journalist whose most recent book was Genuine Authentic: The Real Life of Ralph Lauren, 740 Park is nothing if not exhaustive. It’s a blow-by-blow, who cheated-on-whom account of the building’s residents from days long gone to the present.
Particular attention is paid to corporate raider Saul Steinberg, who lived in a triplex penthouse once belonging to John D. Rockefeller Jr., before selling it for a then-record $35 million in 2000, a price bested by a condo sale at the Time Warner Center three years later. Turns out, Gross writes, that the reported price paid by Stephen Schwarzman for the pad might have been exaggerated by several million dollars, though fellow residents didn’t mind, because it enhanced the value of their apartments.
Some excerpts:
[In 1936], John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s plan to move made national news confirmed on the front page of The New York Times after several days of rumors. It was declared the end of the era of the urban elite living in private houses; fully 90 percent of Manhattan’s wealthiest now occupied apartments. But this, this was the ultimate apartment, as the World Telegram made clear when it helpfully printed a picture of 740 with the huge Rockefeller residence highlighted by a dotted line under the headline “Rockefeller Jrs. Take to Aerial Living.”
–
When Saul Steinberg bought the Brewster/Rockefeller apartment, it was the nadir of 740′s once great fortunes. Stocks went into a slow free fall. By 1971, the market had lost $300 billion in equity and the apartment was, unbelievably, worth less than its 1929 asking price. The apartment was empty, and the estate was desperate to get rid of it, “It was a buy,” Saul’s friend chortles. “It had been sitting on the market forever. It was called the White Elephant.”
The $225,000 price Saul negotiated wasn’t a problem, though the monthly costs were high and his wife thought thirty-four rooms were a bit much. But Saul got what he wanted. He’d sometimes referred to himself as a lost child of the Rockefellers.
When Saul came before the board, its chairman, Ronald Jeancon, already knew him as a brokerage client. “I interviewed him alone; no one else was there, and I told the board, ‘Let ‘em in,”‘ Jeancon says. Holding their noses, the directors agreed.
–
Steinberg’s glory days were almost over. He began reorganizing his company Reliance and developed risky new products like nuclear plant insurance to raise revenues. But regulators were trying to tame Reliance, too. In January 2000, with Reliance’s vital credit rating in doubt, his wife called Saul’s former sister-in-law Kathy Steinberg, the realtor.
In February 2000, [investment banker and chief executive of the Blackstone Group, a buyout firm] Steve Schwarzman made an offer of about $30 million on the Steinberg’s apartment.
Schwarzman was asked to join the co-op board as soon as he moved in. His neighbors, many of whom now drink and nibble beneath the $5 million Cy Twombly painting in his living room, probably also liked the fact that it was reported that he paid as much as $37 million for the apartment, for that false claim but likely enhanced the value of their apartments.
And although he is trying hard, Steve Schwarzman is no Junior, not even a Saul Steinberg. Schwarzman, having only just arrived, still has a very big pair of floors to fill.
Real estate parties branch out to create ever more important buzz [more]
Manhattan still popular, but more South Americans buying in outer boroughs [more]
NYC buyers move to longer-term adjustable mortgages [more]
Using an IRA to buy into real estate becomes more popular option but not for everyone [more]
Greenpoint
137 Dupont Street
The new condominium will offer eight units, including a one-bedroom and seven two-bedrooms. Apartments average around 600 square feet, with either a balcony, roof or private garden. Prices are expected to range from $365,000 to $525,000. David Maundrell of aptsandlofts.com is the sales agent. Contact: www.137dupont.com.Long Island City
The Gantry
48-21 Fifth Street
Sales are expected to begin this month at the 47-unit condo project, part of the first wave of condo projects to hit the market in Long Island City (previous new developments in the area have been rentals or co-ops). The six-story development is located on the waterfront, across the street from the parking garage of the Citylights co-op. One, two and three-bedroom units will have high ceilings, oversized windows and many will have private outdoor spaces, including rooftop cabanas. The building will also have a part-time doorman. Rick Kelly and Tonia Moore of Prudential Douglas Elliman are representing the building. Contact: sales center, 888-440-4821 or www.thegantry.com.Long Island City
Arris Lofts
27-28 Thompson Avenue
The Andalex Group is taking the former Met Life printing plant and Eagle Electric headquarters at Court Square which it bought for $52 million in January and adding two partial floors to develop a total of 237 units. The triangular condo conversion will also have an interior courtyard, indoor lap pool and 17 artists’ studios, which will be sold separately, the New York Post reported. Costas Kondylis is the architect. Units will start at $450,000, and the building should be ready for occupancy next summer. The Sunshine Group will be marketing the property. Contact: sales center, 718-707-0083 or www.arrislofts.com.Long Island City
The Queens Plaza
41-26 27th Street
The 10-story red-brick building with 66 condos is close to topping out, with sales to begin early next year. The building will have a doorman, and most units will have private terraces. Pre-sales began last month, allowing buyers to see apartment layouts and finishes, the Daily News reported. The Developers Group is marketing the project. Contact: The Developers Group, 718-222-1545.Lower Manhattan
14 Wall Street
Boymelgreen Developers closed last month on its $215 million acquisition of the 37-story office tower. The top floors will be converted into condos and the bottom floor will be sold as commercial condos for non-profits, with the middle floors remaining as commercial office space.Lower Manhattan
50 Pine Street
The 12-story building, which was built in 1902 as the headquarters for the Caledonian Insurance Company, is being converted into 20 loft condominiums selling from $841,000 to more than $2 million. Many of the units have unobstructed views from Pine Street to Broadway. Jonathan Phillips and Ginnie Gardiner of Halstead are the exclusive agents. Contact: www.50pine.com.Lower Manhattan
80 South Street
Sales for the Santiago Calatrava- designed tower have started, with the penthouse in the 10-unit building going for $50 million or about $5,000 a square foot. The building, slated to start going up in March, will have 10 vertically stacked, four-story townhouses, each with 10,000 square feet of living space. The cheapest townhouse is going for $29 million, plus five-figure monthly maintenance costs. However, published reports have speculated that developer Frank Sciame will have difficulty obtaining financing for such an architecturally ambitious project, leaving open the question of whether the tower will be built at all. I. Khan. Inc. is the exclusive marketing and sales agent. Contact: 212-709-2633.Lower Manhattan
71 Nassau Street
The 16-story property, known as the Croft Building, is being converted into 52 condominium units, the New York Sun reported. Originally built in 1905, it will open to new residents in the first quarter of 2006.Lower Manhattan
111 Washington Street
Developer Gerald Brauser is replacing his six-story parking garage with a 460,000-square-foot residential tower. The project will comprise about 40 stories of luxury condominiums and an eight-story garage with ground floor retail. The project is expected to cost around $130 million. Brauser also plans to convert another garage, at 611 Sixth Avenue in Chelsea, into an 11-story condo. Architect Garrett Gourlay is designing both projects, Crain’s reported.Lower East Side
Blue
105 Norfolk Street
The 16-story condominium with a stark blue exterior will have more than 30 units ranging from 700 to 2,000 square feet, with prices from $700,000 to as much as $3 million. Construction has already begun on the project and is expected to be finished by 2006. Bernard Tschumi and SLCE Architects designed the building.Midtown West
The Link
310 West 52nd Street
Elad Properties is developing the 44-story, 210-unit glass condominium tower. Starting prices for one bedrooms with 600 to 1,000 square feet will range from $650,000 to $1 million, while two bedrooms with 1,000 to 1,300 square feet will go for $1 to $1.5 million. The 2,500-square-foot three-bedroom townhouses and penthouses start at $2.9 million. Costas Kondylis and Partners and Gal Nauer Architects designed the project. Construction is under way and should be completed by late 2006. Tom Elliott of Elad Marketing is exclusive sales agent. Contact: 212-582-5465.Upper East Side
River East
400 East 92nd Street
Developed under the New York City Housing Development Corporation’s 80/20 program, the building has 196 residential units and 4,325 square feet of retail space. The property is also attached to a new 226-room Marriott Courtyard hotel, which will offer residents full access to its amenities. The developer, the John Buck Company of Chicago, completed the project in July.Construction Update
Flatiron
The O’Neill Building
655 Sixth Avenue
Elad Properties is restoring the building’s 32-foot-high golden domes in exchange for the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s approval of two additional 5,000- square-foot penthouses. Contact: www.theoneillbuilding.com.Tribeca
51 Walker Street
Liton Partners has started construction on the 15-unit luxury condominium. More than 75 percent of the units have gone into contract since marketing began in April. Occupancy is scheduled for March 2006. Veracity Real Estate Management is the sales agent. Contact: 212-966-1612.Financing
Upper East Side
Manhattan House
200 East 66th Street
Developers Jerry O’Connor of O’Connor Capital Partners and Richard Kalikow of Manchester Real Estate retained Carlton Advisory Services to arrange an $800 million joint venture and condominium conversion financing package. The building built by the New York Life Insurance Company in 1950 and designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill contains a total of 1 million square feet of residential, retail, and parking space.Sales Update
Midtown West
Clinton West
516 West 47th Street
The 148-unit condominium project by GPG Equities sold out in eight days. Studios, one- and two-bedrooms feature bamboo flooring and energy-efficient air conditioning and heating systems. A greenhouse and landscaped courtyard are incorporated into the design of the two seven-story buildings that make up the condo. The $80 million development will be ready for occupancy in 2006. The Corcoran Group was the exclusive marketing and sales agent.
New high-rise condominiums with 525 units dwarf area loft buildings [more]
Tessler plans another condo project as upscale companion to 260 Park Avenue South [more]
As new development prices climb, does the massive Midtown project aim too high? [more]
Virtual property tours have spawned an industry dedicated to showing buyers what isn’t yet there [more]
Atlanta
Commercial
Atlanta’s commercial market this year is on pace to beat the sales record of 57 office buildings that changed hands in 2004, according to the Atlanta Business Journal. Construction of new office space is already ahead of 2004, with 2.4 million square feet under construction as of the end of August, compared with 1.7 million square feet by the end of 2004.Residential/Commercial
Steady population growth and a proximity to job centers off Interstates 75 and 285 are fueling a construction boom in Marietta, a northwestern suburb of Atlanta. More than $200 million in future mixed-use development has been approved by the city.Boston
Residential
Boston is expected to add 1,300 new rental apartments in the next 12 months, according to the Boston Globe. The increase comes as rents across the city creep upward, signaling a potential slowdown in Boston’s housing market. The average rent as of the end of August was $1,684, up slightly from $1,654 at the beginning of 2005. Occupancy of Boston’s rentals is up to nearly 98 percent, the Globe reported.Commercial
The Boston suburbs of Waltham and Watertown are the only ones showing “signs of strength” in the commercial market, according to a market report from Grubb & Ellis. Both areas have seen recent large leases, including one by Athenahealth in Watertown for 133,000 square feet. Other Boston environs continue to struggle commercially, with as much as 9 million square feet of office space vacant along Route 128 alone, the Boston Business Journal reported.Chicago
Residential
Prairie Avenue, described in an 1893 guidebook as the “most expensive street in America west of Fifth Avenue,” is undergoing a residential resurgence, according to the New York Times. Once teeming with mansions that eventually fell into disrepair, new condo developments near or on Prairie Avenue are making the throughway one of the hottest residential spots in Chicago again. The new developments include a redevelopment of the former Marshall Field mansion into luxury condos and the new Commonwealth luxury condo building next door.Residential/Commercial
The city is considering a special tax zone to help pay for operating Millennium Park and for beautifying Chicago’s central business district, the Chicago Tribune reported. Downtown property owners would pay additional taxes of about $17.5 million in the first year of operation in the so-called Downtown Special Service area. Residents in the area will have a chance to vote on its creation, but the City Council may have final say.Houston
Residential/Commercial
High-rise residential developments are springing up throughout the nation’s fourth-largest city. The developments, according to the Houston Business Journal, include the first-ever condo high-rise in Houston’s Clear Lake neighborhood a 29-story building with 88 units ranging in price from $300,000 to $2 million. High-rises are also slated for Downtown, River Oaks, and near the Texas Medical Center, where two luxury condo-hotels with more than 200 units are planned.Las Vegas
Residential
After five consecutive quarters ranked among the nation’s top 20 metro areas for housing appreciation, Las Vegas dropped off the list maintained by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. The Las Vegas metro area dropped from number two during the first quarter of 2005 to number 21 during the second quarter, the Las Vegas Sun reported. Las Vegas’ housing appreciated 26.91 percent during the second quarter, putting it at number 21 among the nation’s metro areas in housing appreciation.Residential
But even if Sin City’s housing appreciation has declined, Las Vegas still remains the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the nation. From 2000 through 2004, the Las Vegas Valley’s population grew by 85.5 percent, the largest rate for any metro area, according to a recent report from the Brookings Institution. During the 1990s, the area grew by 18.5 percent, also the nation’s fastest rate.Los Angeles
Residential
Luxury home prices in the Los Angeles metro area hit all-time highs this summer. The value of a luxury home a house worth more than $1 million increased 21.9 percent from the second quarter of 2004 to the second quarter of 2005, with the average luxury home price hitting a record $2.09 million in the second quarter, according to a recent survey by First Republic Bank. That’s an average $376,000 increase from a year ago.Commercial
Two of the biggest office leases signed in Los Angeles this summer were in the Century City neighborhood. A law firm took 50,000 square feet at 1800 Century Park East and Comerica Bank committed to 43,000 square feet at the new 2000 Avenue of the Stars building, according to Globest.com. Both leases are for more than a decade.Miami
Residential
Could the South Florida residential market be cooling? Prices for single-family homes and townhouses in Broward County, for one, were flat in August compared to July, according to the Miami Business Journal. The median price for a single-family home in Broward, north of Miami, was $389,000 in August, up only 1 percent from July. That median was 31.4 percent higher than the $296,000 in August 2004. For townhouses, the August median price was $200,000, the same as the median in July.Residential/Commercial
The South Florida rental market is tightening. More than 10,700 residential rental units disappeared from the area in 2004, Globest.com reported, most of them making way for condos, including recent high-end additions like architect Richard Meier’s Beach House, a 101-unit project on Collins Avenue. Overall, as of the end of August, the vacancy rate in the South Florida rental market was 5.2 percent, and experts anticipate it will only get tighter.Philadelphia
Residential
Across the Philadelphia metro area, home prices are rising at double their historic rates, according to a study released in mid- August by the Philadelphia Inquirer. In the past five years, the median price gain for the area averaged 8.1 percent a year, and the median price rose to $177,000 in 2004 from $155,000 in 2003 a 14.5 percent increase. The median price gain varied across the Philadelphia metro area, from 13 percent in Bucks and Camden counties to 17 percent in Philadelphia and Gloucester counties.San Francisco
Residential
Finding an affordable home in New York is hard but it may be harder in San Francisco. The average home price in San Francisco in 2004 was $641,000, according to the New York Post, but that’s only part of what makes finding a home there difficult. The waiting lists for available spaces have gotten longer recently in San Francisco as the city’s housing inventory has shrunk and as sellers command the market at the expense of even buyers offering cash.Residential/Commercial
A massive, $400 million mixed-use development on 21.5 acres at the base of San Bruno Mountain could create a new downtown for southern San Francisco. Though still in the planning stages, according to the San Francisco Business Journal, the development has ignited buzz in the Bay Area. Proposed by developer Jack Myers, it would include as many as four new towers of up to 21 stories. Hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space as well as hundreds of new condos would be part of the development.Washington, DC
Residential/Commercial
Condo construction in Washington is booming, leading real estate experts to ask whether there is a glut. There are some 29,700 condo units in the pipeline for the next 36 months, compared with 13,700 a year ago, Delta Associates reported. But a recent report by the George Mason University Center for Regional Analysis found there is enough demand, with demand expected to outstrip supply by 20,000 units through the end of the decade.Commercial
The Washington Nationals will soon have a new baseball stadium. Clark Construction Group won the opportunity to build the franchise’s $535 million stadium in the city’s Anacostia neighborhood. The group will get $23.2 million up front to cover initial fees for the stadium, with the remainder coming as the project progresses. The stadium, according to media reports, is supposed to be ready by the 2008 season.
Massive rezoning spurs hopes for residential growth in longtime industrial neighborhood [more]
Area catches boost from rise of both Madison Square Park and Murray Hill [more]
Developers plan lawsuit to let projects proceed, while residents cite safety concerns as the area gets built up [more]
New real estate licensing requirements could add coursework to an easy profession to enter [more]
Decision to sell off remaining city-owned vacant lots could birth thousands of affordable housing units. [more]
City Council passes green legislation
The City Council passed legislation last month that would require any major building construction or renovation paid for with city capital funds to adhere to “green standards.” The environmental standards include using renewable energy sources and conserving materials, according to the New York Times.Trump Riverside Place lawsuit dismissed
Donald Trump’s lawsuit against his partners in the record Riverside Place sale this spring was dismissed by the state Supreme Court last month. The dismissal legally thwarted Trump’s attempt to keep the general partners that control the West Side site from selling it and placing the $1.76 billion in proceeds into a tax-free 1031 exchange, according to the Slatin Report.City to start building second biggest park
The city has taken its first steps toward building its second largest park, in Staten Island. Mayor Bloomberg announced plans last month for a $6 million, 28-acre park, dubbed Owl Hollow Fields, with construction to begin next year. It’s an initial step toward developing a 2,200-acre park over the former Fresh Kills landfill that will be second only to the Bronx’s Pelham Bay Park in area, and nearly two-and-a-half times the size of Central Park.MTA approves Ratner bid for Atlantic rail yards
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority last month approved developer and New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner’s plans for building a basketball arena over the Atlantic Avenue rail yards in Downtown Brooklyn. Ratner will reportedly pay $100 million for the 8.3-acre site, with the rest of the money for development of the arena and several residential buildings coming from the city and the state. The arena is expected to open by fall 2008.Lower Manhattan transit hubs under way
Construction on the $2.2 billion World Trade Center transportation hub, designed by architect Santiago Calatrava, began last month and is expected to be completed in 2009. The station will connect PATH trains, subways, and will also be equipped to one day receive Long Island Rail Road trains and a rail link from Kennedy Airport. Building also got under way on the new Fulton Street Transit Center, a $750 million project which will connect 12 subway lines.Deutsche Bank building demolition starts
Demolition started last month on the Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty Street near Ground Zero. The first phase comprises preparatory work. The second phase will be the actual floor-by-floor deconstruction and is scheduled to start early next year, Crain’s reported. The building has been empty since September 11, when it was severely damaged.Judge to co-op: Couples same as spouses
A Manhattan Supreme Court judge ruled last month that a couple who charged an Upper West Side co-op board discriminated against them because they weren’t married can go ahead with their lawsuit against the board. The board would not allow the male plaintiff to be listed as a co-purchaser because he was not financially qualified. The judge ruled that because married partners are treated by the board as a single economic unit, an unmarried couple should be as well, the Daily News reported.Woodlawn, Whitestone limits on building floated
The city is considering a rezoning for Woodlawn in the Bronx that would limit future development in much of the neighborhood to single- and two-family detached homes, ensuring the area remains essentially a bedroom community, the Daily News reported. In Whitestone in northern Queens, more than 8,000 properties may be subject to new city zoning rules that could include barring property owners from building two houses on lots where only one is now standing. The proposal is part of a larger overall zoning initiative covering blocks in 15 Queens neighborhoods, the New York Sun reported.Largest phase of new Queens West park started
Government officials and developers broke ground last month on the second phase of Gantry Plaza State Park on the edge of Long Island City overlooking the East River. The second phase will include 12 acres of parkland, a playing field and a 1.25-mile waterfront esplanade. The entire Queens West development, covering 74 acres, will have a total of around 23 acres of public park amid its 20 buildings and approximately 10,000 apartment units.Fraud experts investigate “asset rentals” that allow unqualified buyers to get mortgages [more]
In cooling markets, overpriced properties will sit even longer [more]
Owner says the fresh moniker reflects his Century 21 franchise’s plans to expand beyond Manhattan [more]
Like the appreciation on a Central Park West co-op, use of the quasi-word “starchitect” has risen in the past several months, though reputable dictionaries still keep their pages closed to it.
Dating from around the turn of the last century, the word basically describes an architect known beyond the corridors of real estate publications and brokerages, someone both academics who study architecture and plebeians who live inside it know at least in passing a Frank Gehry, Santiago Calatrava or Richard Meier, for instances, all of whom have projects dotting Manhattan.
It can sometimes be a compliment, sometimes be an insult.
“Starchitect,” according to online encyclopedia Wikipedia, “is normally a pejorative term used to describe architects whose celebrity and critical acclaim have transformed them into idols of the architecture world. The term seems to have gained widespread currency in the first decade of the 21st century, perhaps as a result of the real estate boom.”
Starchitect has found media homes in New York, according to a search by The Real Deal, perhaps because the city has been drawing the very sort of star architect that defines the word. The New York Times has used the word once so far to describe Calatrava’s plans for the Fordham Spire in Chicago and put it in quotation marks. Other city print publications like the Post, the Daily News, the Observer, the Wall Street Journal, and New York magazine have yet to bestow such credence on starchitect, but the blogosphere has showered it with usage. (A Google search turned up 10,500 hits in less than a second.)
Curbed.com, for one, in mid-September noted the existence of “starchitect fans” in a posting about Calatrava and the late Philip Johnson; and a sister site, the Gutter, linked to a March essay on starchitects by Arthur Lidsky in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
“One-time signature architects, or celebrity architects, are now called star architects, and they have a lot of fans in academe,” Lidsky wrote, noting that the first starchitect was “the Egyptian Imhotep, who built, for King Djoser, the Step Pyramid at Saggara, the precursor of the iconic pyramids at Giza.”
No word, though, on whether Imhotep had an agent to rep his star status.
Yuval Vidal had done his job.
A buyer for the apartment on Central Park West that he was selling had contacted him through Barak Realty’s Web site. Vidal, a sales associate at Barak and a broker for more than two years, showed the apartment on a Monday in July to the prospective buyer, a young woman who told him she would be buying a place with her parents’ help. Her parents, she said, lived in China, but she would consult with them nonetheless.
Vidal sent her more information on the apartment, a junior one-bedroom on the seventh floor. She requested a second showing. He did that later the same week. This showing, she spent more time in the apartment, checking the layout.
“She was very interested,” Vidal told The Real Deal. “We started negotiating the deal, the purchase price, and all the terms.”
By Friday of that week, barely a few days after the first showing, the deal was all set to close, Vidal said. The seller’s lawyer planned to send the contract to the young woman’s lawyer first thing next Monday morning.
Vidal commenced his weekend a happy broker.
Until he checked his email Sunday.
“Dear Yuval,” the message read, “I just received an urgent notification from my parents to withdraw the offer and to discontinue the purchase. They have studied the floor plan in detail and found the feng shui (Chinese mythical theories about room layout and arrangement) to be against our birth charts. Therefore, though the apartment is perfectly fine and charming (I had really liked it), it is not suitable for my family.”
Vidal, admittedly not a feng shui expert, dusted himself off and, shortly after the email, ended up selling the apartment to another buyer for $5,000 more than the young woman was going to pay. Two weeks later, though, he saw an ad in the Village Voice touting a feng shui master who offers help to people searching for apartments with that certain… something.
“I think,” Vidal said, laughing. “I should give that customer this feng shui master’s telephone number.”
The original Apprentice is moving on from Donald Trump. But don’t fear: He may very well stay in real estate.
In 2004, Bill Rancic won the first season of NBC’s “The Apprentice” to become Trump’s prot g . He was put in charge of the development of the 90-story Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, and was heaped with media attention and general approbation for having the business acumen to beat out other twenty- and thirty-somethings in the fierce world of carefully staged television.
Rancic announced in September, however, that he will leave the Trump organization and the show when his contract runs out in March, according to media reports. He is scheduled to make appearances during the next “Apprentice” season, imparting his accumulated wisdom to other contestants, but otherwise seems to be running out the clock as he waits to move onto something else.
Rancic told an audience in Malaysia last month that he wants to strike out on his own: “I’m going to go out and start another business of my own,” UPI quoted Rancic as saying. “That’s in my blood.”
Rancic, now a few years into his 30s, first made a name for himself in business through premium cigar distributor www.cigarsaroundtheworld.com. He also founded Rancic Properties, which markets luxury condos and rentals in Chicago. This experience may be why he left open the possibility of returning to real estate.
“In the years to come,” he said, “I hope there will be Bill Rancic Towers right alongside Trump Towers.”
