The Real Deal New York

Starrett City, also known as Spring Creek Towers, is the largest government-subsidized residential rental complex in the United States. It sits on a 153-acre site near Jamaica Bay in Brooklyn, New York, and includes 46 buildings. The complex, established in 1974 under the Mitchell-Lama program, eventually grew to 5,881 apartments housing around 15,000 residents. It also includes eight parking garages. In 2007, during the real estate boom, private equity firm Clipper Equities reached an agreement with the owner of Starrett City, a group of investors, to buy it for $1.3 billion. However, politicians opposed the likely logic of the deal, conversion of the complex to market-rates, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development rejected the sale to Clipper. A second attempt at buying it, after reassuring residents Clipper would not convert the complex to market-rate, also failed. The complex's owners Starrett City Associates, a group of investors first led by the late financier Disque Deane (who died in 2010) and now by his widow Carol Deane, announced in early 2009 they would abandon attempts to sell it and that it would remain within Mitchell-Lama. Donald Trump disclosed in his financial filings as a candidate for president that he has a 4 percent ownership stake in the complex. -TA