Web hits: The month in review John Burger
The penthouse at 781 Fifth Avenue
Hudson Yards
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Penthouse switches brokers
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Top deals of the month
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Top deals of the month
(Read full stories online)
The city’s nine richest developers By Julie Strickland Richard LeFrak, one of the region’s biggest landowners, topped the recent Forbes list of the city’s wealthiest developers. With a net worth of $5.6 billion, he counts the eponymous LeFrak City among his holdings — a complex with 5,000 units in Queens. Related Companies’ Stephen Ross was second, with a $4.8 billion net worth. Ross has the $20 billion Hudson Yards project in progress on Manhattan’s far West Side. Next was a three-way tie: Forbes said Sheldon Solow, Richard LeFrak Jerry Speyer and Donald Trump all had a net worth of $3.5 billion. Retail magnate Jeff Sutton came in sixth, with a net worth of $2.7 billion. Boston Properties REIT co-founder Mort Zuckerman, with a net worth of $2.3 billion, came in seventh, followed by Dumbo frontman David Walentas with $1.4 billion and Leon Charney, who holds 1.2 million square feet of commercial space in Times Square, with $1.3 billion.
Source: StreetEasy and The Real Deal.Data is for closed deals filed with the city between Dec. 27, 2013 and Jan. 24, 2014, where both a broker and an address can be identified. Chart includes only listing brokers.
$95M Sherry Netherland penthouse switches Elliman brokers
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By Julie Strickland The 18th-floor penthouse at the Sherry-Netherland on Fifth Avenue, a listing in the hands of superbroker Dolly Lenz before she departed Douglas Elliman in June, changed brokers again. Lisa Simonsen, the Elliman broker behind the $48 million sale of a Plaza Hotel condo in 2011, was replaced by Elliman’s Oren Alexander. Alexander, now co-listing the property with Kathy Sloane Brown Harris Stevens’ Kathy Sloane, who shared it with both Lenz and Simonsen, said the move reflects “a change in the whole marketing strategy.” The listing, reduced to $88 million from $95 million in December, is back at $95 million. Alexander called the price reduction “a mistake.” Liberty Travel founder Gilbert Haroche owns Oren Alexander the 9,000-square-foot pre-war co-op.
Agent
Firm
Price
Address
John Burger
Brown Harris Stevens
$27.5 million
1 West 72nd St.
Elizabeth Sahlman, Liora Yalof
Corcoran Group
$16.5 million
525 Park Ave.
Setsuko Hattori, Masae Fujimoto
Douglas Elliman
$15.5 million
15 Central Park West
Carol Staab
Douglas Elliman
$14.95 million 1049 Fifth Ave.
Frank Arends, Daniela Zakarya
Town Residential
$14.25 million 445 Lafayette St.
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Suit says Malkins cheated Empire State investors out of $500M By Hiten Samtani Empire State Building shareholders filed another lawsuit against Empire State Realty Trust, claiming the Malkin family and executives of the real estate investment trust had their selfinterest paramount when taking the tower public. The suit, filed Jan. 6 in state Supreme Court, claims the Malkins could have entertained proposals to sell the building, the highest of which was $500 million more than shareholders received in Anthony Malkin the October IPO. By refusing to consider selling, they breached their responsibilities to shareholders. The suit names, among others, Anthony and Peter Malkin and Empire State Realty Trust general counsel Thomas Keltner. Plaintiffs Hope Ratner and Mary Jane Fales are shareholders in Empire State Building Associates — the entity formerly owned by more than 2,800 individual investors, including the Malkins. An ESRT spokesperson called the lawsuit’s claims “wholly without merit.” 122 February 2014 www.TheRealDeal.com
10) REBNY gala crowd buoyed by market euphoria, concerned on taxes
Reader comments Response to news that the city’s residential property taxes for residents will jump in 2015: “Where was the tax decrease when property values fell?” Response to brokers saying that a new Starbucks portends gentrification in Inwood: “Inwood has not changed all that much, but people keep ‘discovering’ it for the first time. The growth of illegal nightclubs is ‘popping,’ which has been a bigger impact than the 201st Starbucks on Manhattan Island.” Response to Soho usurping Tribeca as city’s priciest nabe: “In the end, we all live in shoeboxes and don’t have lawns.”