Biscayne Landing

Michael Swerdlow, the original developer of North Miami’s Biscayne Landing, has received approval for a 10-acre lease at the property, according to the South Florida Business Journal. The deal, a partnership with the Lefrak Organization, which was approved by the city council in a 3-2 vote, includes a first phase featuring an 850,000-square-foot mall. As part of the transaction, North Miami will get an advance payment of $17 million. Swerdlow sold his portion of the property several years ago, and has since been working to win approval to redevelop the site. A previous lease proposal by Swerdlow was rejected by the city in March. [SFBJ]

Vornado Realty Trust is “nervously bullish” on the commercial real estate market, Steven Roth, the REIT’s chairman, told CNBC’s Squawk Box today. Roth said that while he believes the market bottom has already passed, and transaction volume is “ticking up a great deal,” he is still keeping some office space in his portfolio off the market until rents recover.

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Richard LeFrak, president of the LeFrak Organization, appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box recently with Tom Flexner, global head of Citigroup Real Estate, to discuss opportunities in the commercial real estate market. LeFrak, who cited the billions of investment dollars on the market sidelines, asked Flexner how private capital can invest in real estate at a time when no one seems willing to take a loss on their distressed assets. “It’s really a function of distressed sellers rather than distressed assets,” Flexner said. “The number one way that private capital can get into the real estate sector is to lower their return requirements.”

An investment group headed by Starwood Capital Group beat out the Related Companies, Lone Star Funds and Colony Capital to win a 40 percent stake in a company created by bank regulators to contain the assets of Corus Bank. The bank was seized last month by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and has a $4.5 billion loan portfolio that includes many failed South Florida condominium projects. The winning consortium includes TPG Capital (formerly Texas Pacific Group), Perry Capital and WLR LeFrak, a venture that involves investor Wilbur Ross and real estate company the LeFrak Organization. The winning bidder got the assets for a roughly 40 percent discount in a cash and debt deal.

Harrison LeFrak, managing director of the LeFrak Organization, told Bloomberg News that he expects the impending wave of commercial real estate defaults to topple more than 500 regional and community banks in the next 12 months alone. The troubles in the commercial lending market are a result of unrealistic underwriting standards from 2005 through 2007. The loans underwritten in those years are slated to come due beginning in 2010. The commercial mortgage backed securities market is in even more serious trouble than the rest of the commercial market, because there is no way to negotiate the commercial bonds. [more]