Tag: New York City real estate news

To start the year, Marc Holliday’s SL Green is straddling two very different realities in Manhattan’s office market. The contrast is hard to miss.

On one side is 100 Park Avenue, where the real estate investment trust looks firmly in control. Selling a minority stake in the building to Rockpoint at a $425 million valuation gave SL Green a clean, early win as it kicks off a planned $2.5 billion selloff. 

The move came just weeks after the firm bought out Prudential’s 49 percent stake at a $360 million valuation, put in fresh equity and quickly turned around and sold an interest at a higher mark.

That kind of sequencing sends a message: this isn’t a fire sale. The 900,000-square-foot tower is 95 percent leased, buoyed by Alvarez & Marsal’s 220,000-square-foot deal, and sits just south of Grand Central; it’s exactly the kind of asset that’s still drawing capital. 

By selling partial interests instead of whole buildings, SL Green is freeing up cash to deal with high interest rates while keeping a hand on the wheel. Management has framed the selloff as balance-sheet management, not a pullback, and has already said it plans to be back buying this year.

Across Midtown, though, the tone is much more combative. At Worldwide Plaza, SL Green and RXR are fighting in court to block a UCC foreclosure they say is designed to wrest control of the property rather than recover mezzanine debt. The lawsuit against Extell Development paints the auction as rushed, restrictive and tilted to scare off real bidders.

It’s a high-stakes fight over who gets leverage in restructuring nearly $1 billion of CMBS debt.

The backdrop is ugly. Worldwide Plaza is only about 63 percent occupied, lost Cravath as its anchor tenant and was appraised at $345 million last year, down sharply from its pre-pandemic peak.

Together, the properties show SL Green playing both sides of the cycle: cashing in where demand and liquidity still exist and digging in where the path forward depends less on leasing wins and more on control, timing and the courts.

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There’s been no shortage of New York real estate headlines in the early days of 2026. Here’s some of the week’s other big stories.

Judge rejects Mamdani’s bid to pause Pinnacle auction, paves way for Summit takeover

In the first big test of Zohran Mamdani’s real estate policy plans, a bankruptcy judge rejected the city’s bid to pause the auction of over 5,000 rent-stabilized apartments. The decision allows Summit Properties to proceed with a possible takeover of Joel Wiener’s Pinnacle Group portfolio, though results of Thursday’s auction still weren’t public by the time of this writing.

“Broken promises” and unpaid bills: Law firm representing Chetrit seeks to withdraw from case

Attorney Elliott Joffe accused the Chetrits of non-cooperation, providing unreliable info and unpaid legal bills and is seeking to withdraw from representing Meyer Chetrit. The developer is battling a $132 million judgement owed to an entity of Maverick Real Estate Partners after a foreclosure case, as well as criminal charges of tenant harassment. 

Judge awards $22M to JLL over Moshe Silber’s mortgage fraud

Moshe Silber and his business partner, Fred Schulman, were ordered to pay $21.7 million in restitution to their lender, JLL. The pair pleaded guilty more than a year ago to a mortgage fraud scheme in which they obtained an inflated loan for a 976-unit rental property in Cincinnati. 

Housing whirlwind: Mamdani wastes no time targeting “bad landlords”

Mamdani began his term targeting “bad landlords,” including naming tenant advocate Cea Weaver as director of the relaunched Office to Protect Tenants. The city is also hosting “Rental Ripoff” hearings for tenants to voice grievances and help shape future policy

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SL Green starts $2.5B selloff with 100 Park deal

Holliday, Rechler, Barnett square off in Worldwide Plaza foreclosure brawl: “Sham auction”

Judge rejects Mamdani’s bid to pause Pinnacle auction, paves way for Summit takeover

The week in New York City, real estate was all about trouble: who’s been in it before, who’s in it today and how to avoid it in the future.

For Eli Karp, trouble arose this week. Madison Realty Capital took over his Flatbush property at 1580 Nostrand Avenue with a $70 million credit bid, where Karp once planned a sprawling two-building development called Hello Nostrand on the site.

Karp’s Hello Living bought the site for $13 million in 2014 touting plans to build a luxury apartment complex. As soon as construction started, however, he ran into trouble with lenders. 

He put the property into bankruptcy in 2021, a day before senior lender Madison Realty Capital could launch a UCC foreclosure process. Madison sold a $6 million mezzanine loan and $73 million senior loan on the property to another firm, Arch Companies, which proceeded to sue Karp to initiate another foreclosure on the property.

He has only finished one of the buildings, a 93-unit rental which was auctioned off in June alongside the undeveloped property. The once-rising star also lost 2417 Albemarle Road to his lender in a credit bid via auction.

Wrecking crew

Demolition company Alba Services confronted issues from its past.

The nonunion subcontractor agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle claims that it flouted New York’s workers’ compensation laws, retaliated against injured workers and failed to address reports of sexual harassment.

Alba allegedly failed to report hundreds of workplace injuries between 2016 and 2024, allowing the company to lower its insurance costs. The company also threatened employees who tried filing workers’ compensation claims.

The settlement was announced by the New York Attorney General’s office, but the ball started rolling when the laborers’ union, Local 79, launched a public campaign against the firm in 2022, accusing it of offering rewards for information on employees who filed “false” workers’ compensation claims as a means of intimidation.

As part of the settlement, the company will be overseen by the attorney general’s office for at least three years and is required to file biannual reports showing compliance with workers’ compensation and human rights laws. 

Litigation concerns are nothing new for Alba. In 2023, it was one of 26 companies indicted in a wide-ranging construction kickback scheme; Alba received $2.8 million in inflated contracts and change orders at 250 Fifth Avenue and 189 Bowery, according to the indictment.

The wolf’s den

Trouble used to dog Jordan Belfort — the inspiration of Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning “Wolf of Wall Street.” While he’s looking to turn over a new leaf as a motivational speaker, anything connected to the disgraced former stockbroker and convicted felon will continue to grab headlines.

His former Long Island mansion at 5 Pin Oak Court in Glen Head found a buyer at a $6.9 million price point. lived in the 8,700-square-foot home with his wife, Nadine Macaluso, during the height of his career in the 1990s. 

The feds took Belfort’s home in 2001, two years after his conviction of securities fraud and prior to a two-year stint in federal prison. So much for “not f*king leaving,” in the words of Leonardo DiCaprio, who played Belfort in the film. 

Belfort pivoted his life and moved west, buying an oceanfront home in Hermosa Beach in California, but has since apparently relocated to Miami during the pandemic. 

Reboot

Speaking of pivots, Richard Coles and Gary Tischler’s Vanbarton Group are becoming masters of office-to-residential conversions. This week, the company landed a $280 million loan from Invesco to refinance a 455-unit building at 980 Sixth Avenue.

The loan replaces a $273 million one from Blackstone’s mortgage trust. Vanbarton went seeking the permanent financing after converting WeWork’s former three floors into 77 market-rate apartments. 

The firm is one of the most active office-to-residential converters in the city with a pipeline exceeding 2,000 units. 

Your move, Nathan Berman.

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Eli Karp’s troubled Flatbush development returns to lender

Demolition firm agrees to pay $1.5M to settle claims it hid workplace injuries, ignored sexual harassment reports

“Wolf of Wall Street” Long Island mansion sells for $7M

On Sunday, the leader of New York City pulled the plug on his reelection campaign.

After months of speculations — and years of scandals — Eric Adams officially dropped his bid to come back as mayor of New York City.

Even as Adams resisted pressure to abandon the race, his departure felt inevitable as he struggled to keep up in the polls with three other candidates. A coalescing around a candidate to compete with Zohran Mamdani has long been a clarion call among watchers.

Adams still has a few months left at Gracie Mansion, but The Real Deal columnist Erik Engquist evaluated the real estate legacy the 110th mayor will leave. 

While Adams was dropping out of the race, the New York Mets were putting the final nail in the coffin of a collapse that left the team out of the MLB playoffs. But this week wasn’t all bad for owner Steve Cohen.

His plan for an $8 billion casino complex is heading to the final round of the state’s casino licensing competition after a community advisory committee voted unanimously to advance Metropolitan Park, a project that would transform 50 acres of parking lots next to Citi Field. 

That leaves a list of four contenders for three downstate gaming licenses: MGM Empire City in Yonkers; Queens Aqueduct Casino, operated by Resorts World; and Bally’s in Throggs Neck. 

Most expect the state to grant MGM and Resorts World two of the licenses because they both already operate as racinos. That would leave Bally’s and Metropolitan Park proposals competing against each other for the last license. 

On the legal front, Meyer Chetrit was criminally indicted in Manhattan for harassing rent-regulated tenants in Chelsea, accused of waging a five-year campaign of harassment against two septuagenarians to force them out of their building.

Charges include two counts of harassment of a rent-regulated tenant in the first degree, a class E felony carrying a maximum sentence of four years in prison.

Get excited, connoisseurs of Swedish meatballs. An entity connected to Ikea purchased 529 Broadway in Soho from Jeff Sutton for $213 million. It’s a 58,000-square-foot commercial building occupied by Nike.

The investment group is planning to open an Ikea location across the first and second floors, totaling 25,000 square feet. 

Also, of interest this week, the developers behind the iconic Flatiron Building’s conversion have unveiled the project’s initial pricing, where the projected sellout is $375 million for 18 of its 35 residential units.

Prices for the available units start just under $11 million; the two most expensive condos are asking $48 million and $50 million.

The Brodsky Organization and Sorgente Group are the developers, while Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group is handling sales, which appear to have begun.

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Eric Adams drops out of mayoral race

Mayor Adams’ real estate legacy will endure, even if few remember him for it

Steve Cohen’s casino proposal advances to final round of competition 

The week in New York real estate started off with a shocker when Compass swooped in to acquire Anywhere Real Estate, parent company of Corcoran, Sotheby’s International Realty, Coldwell Banker, Century 21 and other major brands.

The all-stock merger values Anywhere at $1.6 billion and gives Compass shareholders 78 percent ownership of the combined entity.

The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026 and the combined company’s enterprise value would be an estimated $10 billion. 

The deal brings together the two largest brokerages in the country by transaction volume, according to RealTrends; Compass recorded more than $231 billion in transaction volume in 2024, while Anywhere transacted nearly $184 billion.

A real estate lifer found his next project this week when Harry Macklowe closed a deal to redevelop a 1920s-era apartment building on Madison Avenue into ultraluxury condos. He bought the property at 809 Madison on the Upper East Side’s “Gold Coast” from Churchill Real Estate Holdings for $49 million.

One obstacle to the site is the Landmarks Preservation Commission, but Macklowe was able to get the LPC on board with his plans, sources told The Real Deal, which include using air rights he acquired to expand the building and convert it into large, 4,000-square-foot single-floor apartments.

Macklowe, who turned 88 last month, hasn’t launched a Manhattan development project in a decade, when he bought One Wall Street for $585 million. The $2 billion conversion project has had its ups and downs, but after a period of slow sales, there’s been an increase in contracts.

Casino developments, however, will not be in the cards for Manhattan. A community advisory committee dashed the Soloviev Group’s hopes for a casino on a vacant lot near the United Nations building, voting against the proposal by a 4-2 tally.

The Freedom Plaza project was the third casino to be rolled out of Manhattan over the course of a couple of weeks, adding to defeats suffered by SL Green (Times Square) and Silverstein Properties (Far West Side).

The “racinos” had far better luck later in the week. MGM Empire City in Yonkers and the Queens Aqueduct Casino, operated by Resorts World, received unanimous approval from their CACs, moving their casino proposals on to the state gaming commission.

Should they secure downstate gaming licenses, as expected, there would be one left up for grabs. Among those wanting it: Steve Cohen in Queens, Bally’s in the Bronx and Joe Sitt in Brooklyn.

And finally, on the celebrity real estate front, Sabrina Carpenter has a new home for her to offer prospective suitors a “House Tour.”

An entity tied to Carpenter, who is touring a recent album release, closed on a duplex at 108 Leonard Street for nearly $10 million. 

The 2,900-square-foot pad is connected by a private elevator and features four private terraces. The home comes with three bedrooms and three full bathrooms. 

Read more

Compass to acquire Anywhere for $1.6B

Macklowe nabs Madison Ave site for next condo project

It’s official: Manhattan won’t have a casino