Jasper’s fate uncertain as condo faces foreclosure
Developer Harry Jeremias is facing a foreclosure suit at the Jasper, the Ismael Levy-designed condominium conversion in Murray Hill, after defaulting on $83 million in loans and failing to complete the sale of the property to European investors.
Petra Capital Management filed last month to have the New York State Supreme Court appoint a temporary receiver for the 80-unit building at 114 East 32nd Street. The move comes just one month after the real estate fund filed to foreclose on the condo.
According to public records, Jeremias, founder of the Harch Group and president of PHH Realty, borrowed $93.75 million from Petra Mortgage Capital in February 2007.
By November 2008, however, the New York Times reported that the conversion was halted, citing slow sales and millions of dollars in cost overruns. Harch Group announced that a European investment group would convert the building into a boutique hotel and that buyers would receive their deposits back. However, the deal with the European investors later fell through as well. By David Jones
Eric Trump purchases neighboring unit on CPS
Donald Trump’s son Eric recently bought an apartment for $540,000 next door to the one he purchased in late 2007 in the Trump building at 100 Central Park South.
The younger Trump, an executive vice president for development and acquisitions at his father’s company, the Trump Organization, closed on condominium unit 14F on March 24, according to city property records published last month.
The one-bedroom in the 14-story Trump Parc East was listed earlier this year for $649,000 by Garr & Co. Michael Garr, president of the residential brokerage, would not comment on the sale.
City records identified the seller as Fine Living LLC.
In November 2007, Trump paid $2 million for apartment 14D, a 1,353-square-foot unit next door, where he resides.
Trump told The Real Deal that the 550-square-foot apartment is being rented to a tenant, but that could change in the future. By Adam Pincus
Hamptons listings battle heads to the courthouse
For nearly two years, the dominant method for sharing residential listings in the Hamptons has been through the Web-based Open RealNet Exchange, or OREX, which is used by small and large firms, but not by all of them.
Now, though, in an attempt to level the playing field, George and Jean Simpson, a husband-and-wife team from Hampton Bays who work in the real estate business, are trying to shut OREX down.
Last month, they filed a 58-page lawsuit against OREX and 25 firms and individuals who use it, including the Corcoran Group and Prudential Douglas Elliman.
A key part of the Simpsons’ claim is that OREX, which they say controls 85 percent of all Hamptons residential listings, charges a cost-prohibitive $40,000 for its services, according to the suit. The fee is classified under the terms of a user’s contract, and nobody contacted for this story would confirm it.
In contrast, a typical multiple listings service, like the kind utilized on the rest of Long Island, usually costs about a few thousand dollars a year for a similar-size firm, George Simpson said.
The value of OREX, which is owned by Quogue resident Nicholas Khuri, according to the suit, is that in addition to details about square footage and number of bathrooms, it provides the name and phone number of the seller, which can be critical to scoring clients. By C.J. Hughes
170 East End hit with ‘surprising’ number of lawsuits from buyers
The new luxury condominium 170 East End Avenue has been hit with what one real estate attorney calls a “surprising” number of lawsuits since closings in the building began last year, including one for more than $50 million.
Five individual buyers have brought suits against the Upper East Side condo’s sponsor, Skyline Developers, a subsidiary of the New Jersey-based Garden Homes Development, whose principal is Orin Wilf. The development’s marketing company, the Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group, has been named in two of the suits.
Three of the lawsuits allege that, in one form or another, the completed building does not conform to the offering plan or marketing descriptions of how the finished product was supposed to be delivered. The other two lawsuits allege that the 110-unit building’s first closing did not occur when the offering plan said it would.
While the down market has resulted in a greater number of real estate-related lawsuits, which The Real Deal examined in its April issue, attorney Allison Scollar, who heads the real estate division at law firm Guzov Ofsink, said that five individual lawsuits from buyers against a developer is an unusually large number. By Gabby Warshawer
The only project selling in crowded Williamsburg?
In the frenetic years of the recent housing boom, developers crammed Williamsburg with shiny new ground-up construction condominiums. But they often overlooked the allure of the post-industrial lofts that began beckoning artists to the neighborhood in the 1970s and 1980s.
That may be one reason for the success of Williamsburg condo conversion Mason Fisk, where apartments are selling briskly while nearby developments languish on the market.
Seventeen of the building’s 26 units have gone into contract since the converted industrial loft, located at 72 Berry Street between North 9th and 10th streets, went on the market March 1, said Deborah Rieders, a senior vice president at the Corcoran Group and director of sales at the project.
Such speedy sales are a rare feat in north Brooklyn, where the number of home sales tumbled 42 percent to 142 in the fourth quarter of 2008, down from 245 in the same quarter a year earlier, according to a fourth-quarter market report released by Prudential Douglas Elliman.
Asking prices at Mason Fisk average $651 per square foot, according to Streeteasy.com, compared to $748 per square foot for a unit at Williamsburg development One Northside Piers.
Mason Fisk is the brainchild of Adam Meshberg and his brother Justin, who is one of the project’s developers along with partner David Martin and a private equity fund. By Candace Taylor
Hi Halstead, bye Coldwell Banker at Strivers West in Harlem
After about a year on the market and with 75 percent of the units sold by Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy, BRP Development Corporation wanted “a new look” for its Strivers West project, said Julian Duggin, project manager at BRP. It turned to Halstead Property Development Marketing to sell the remaining five condo units.
Switching marketing teams mid-project has become commonplace recently as developers look for ways to drum up sales in a slow market.
BRP auditioned four or five brokers to take over sales at the 20-unit project at 2601 Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem, Duggin said. Units range from 900 to 1,463 square feet and are priced from $499,000 to $795,000.
Stephen Kliegerman, executive director of development marketing at Halstead, said he thought the developer switched to his firm because Coldwell wasn’t “necessarily the most Harlem-centric at the time. Not being Harlem-centric was okay” in a boom market, Kliegerman said. But in a tougher economic climate, “they really needed a broker who had a greater presence in Harlem.” By Sara Polsky