Results tagged “petercoopervillage”

Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village tenants suing property owner Tishman Speyer had another big day yesterday, when the state's highest court heard arguments in a trial that could set a costly precedent for landlords at rent-regulated buildings citywide. The tenants' lawyers said Tishman's conversion of rent-regulated apartments into market-rate units was illegal because the developer received tax abatement, something the state legislature forbids. But Tishman's lawyers argued that the law doesn't apply to them because the apartments became rent-stabilized 18 years before the developers got the tax breaks. A semantic debate about the word "become" ensued, with Judge Robert S. Smith finally asking, "You might say that I became a grandfather for the third time last month. Isn’t that normal English, even though I was already a grandfather?" (His point, seemingly, was that the law's use of the word "became" shouldn't be so strictly interpreted by Tishman.) But the bigger question yesterday hinged on what impact a verdict for the tenants would have—they're seeking some $200 million in damages from Tishman, whose lawyers warned that landlords could have to repay “tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars” to tenants who were overcharged, should the Appeals court uphold the lower court's ruling.

Today's Times exposé on the financial woes gripping the owners of StuyTown and Peter Cooper Village is filled with insider analysis that makes our eyes glaze over, such as, "At Stuyvesant Town, there is a $3 billion first mortgage, or commercial mortgage-backed security, and a $1.4 billion second loan, known as “mezzanine debt” held by SL Green, the government of Singapore and others." But the bottom line is easy enough to grasp; as one analyst puts it, "I’d say their equity has been wiped out, given the decline in apartment values."

The state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, will hear arguments between Stuyvesant Town owner Tishman Speyer and Stuy Town tenants. The NY Times reports that Tishman and BlackRock Realty were given permission to appeal a ruling that said it wrongfully raised rents at the huge complex. Tishman bought the rent-regulated complex for $5.4 billion, hoping to profit on market-rate rents, but an appellate division found the rent increases shouldn't have happened since it was receiving tax breaks associated with rent-regulated properties. City Councilman Daniel Garodnick thinks the tenants will win in the end, "This is a landlord-tenant dispute that hinges on basic principles of fairness to taxpayers and fairness to tenants. We look forward to a speedy hearing and resolution by the state’s highest court." If the tenants succeed, Tishman will have to pay a rumored $200 million in back rent, and other landlords around the city who took advantage of the tax breaks may also have to pay back rent to their tenants.

Yesterday, the state appeals court ruled that developer Tishman Speyer "had wrongfully raised rents and deregulated thousands of apartments after receiving special tax breaks," the NY Times reports.

Every $5.4 billion purchase of a sprawling apartment complex during the height of the boom has its problems! Bond analysis firm Fitch Ratings released information about Tishman Speyer's Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village complex and found the developer "has approximately six months of reserves remaining to cover the trust portion of the total debt on the property." The Observer puts it more bluntly: "When the reserve is completely eroded, Tishman Speyer... would need to put in more cash or potentially face default on its loans." The threat of default is something that observers had been suggesting since last summer, after an earlier analysis of Tishman revenue. While Tishman Speyer hasn't commented, a tipster told Curbed yesterday that much of the complex's staff seemed to be laid off.

The turmoil at Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village continues, as behemoth real estate developer Tishman Speyer Properties, is flushing out rent-stabilized tenants who it believes do not live in Stuy Town-Peter Cooper anymore.

Tishman Speyer, the real estate company that bought Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village for $5.4 billion in 2006, is going on a landscaping binge at the sprawling housing complex. The company plans on planting approximately 200,000 plants across the property's 80 acres, including 10,000 trees and more than 3,000 shrubs. The net effect on one resident was that it feel as if she were in a suburban oasis in the city.

One month's free rent! Pets allowed! These are some of the new strategies from Tishman Speyer for its market-rate rentals at Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village complex. Which is a far cry from its past as a complex where building workers would be rewarded with $150 gift certificates if they narced on pet-owning tenants.

An appellate court ruled this week that a 71-year-old woman could remain in the West Village apartment she shares with her two cats, despite a no-pets clause in her lease. Siiri Marvits has lived in the same apartment for 43 years and has had her two cats Athena and Apollo for more than ten years. The Daily News reports that according to the New York City Law Journal, a landlord must begin eviction proceedings within...

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a double shooting/possible homicide on Greene St. in Brooklyn, a shooting at Wyckoff Ave. and Starr St. in Brooklyn, and another shooting at East 51st St. and Church Ave. in Brooklyn. An appreciation of Jewish Delis in New York City. To avoid the widespread use of pesticides on its acres of grounds, real estate firm Tishman Speyer released 720,000 ladybugs around Stuy-Town and Peter Cooper Village. The ladybugs will...

We don't know if that's brilliant or frightening.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a found grenade(!) at Sedgwick Ave. and Depot Pl. in the Bronx, a child abduction on 8th Ave. and 150th St. in Manhattan, and a person struck by a train on 103rd St. and Roosevelt Ave. in Queens.
• A New Jersey State Police report concluded that the unauthorized use of flashing emergency lights by his driver didn't cause Governor Corzine's near-fatal crash, but it did contribute significantly to the accident by initiating the chain of events.
• Your apartment is only as small as your imagination and creativity, and a retired steamfitter who lives in Peter Cooper Village knows it.
• Parents Against Styrofoam in Schools (P.A.S.S.) are objecting to the approximately four million styrofoam trays used in New York's public schools every week.
• The woman charged with robbing rapper Foxy Brown was released from Rikers Island after her alleged victim failed to appear at the accused's grand jury hearing.
• Brownstoner notes that the DUMBO pedestrian plaza is coming together at a record pace.
• Before new city noise regulations kick in July 1, Stereogum rates the 20 Loudest Albums of All Time.
• Mayor Bloomberg lashed out against special tax breaks that could hand developer Bruce Ratner an extra $300 million for developing Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards. Mayor Mike hopes Gov. Spitzer will quash the "carve-out" benefit.

With the $5.4 billion purchase of the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village apartment complex by Tishman-Speyer, some longtime rent-stabilized tenants have been worried about whether they will be able to stay. Well, now tenants are complaining that Tishman-Speyer has been spying on them.

• Cabbies are worried about their safety after robberies on the Lower East Side
• The city's problem-laden high schools for pregnant girls are closing; check out this article about how one student was facing the difficulties of her school, which included teachers not showing up and student fights
• Culturegrrl speaks with William Griswold, the future head of the Morgan Library, who actually left the Morgan a few years ago, with stings at the Getty and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
• Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village has become a symbol of the high cost of living in NYC and the place for people to join hands in protest
• Green thumbs in Red Hook and plans are not yet approved for Whole Foods in Gowanus
• The end is nigh: Donald Trump agrees with Rosie O'Donnell regarding Lizzy Hasselback
• A baby was found wandering around Staten Island; an elderly couple took care of the baby until the police arrived, and the baby has since been identified
• After their hostess kicked them out of her apartment, two people beat her up in Central Park
• When it smells like vomit but it's really just the crap rotting in a vacated apartment

• The city wants to do repair work to buildings that need it - and charge the landlords - in legislation proposed by the City Council and supported by the Mayor and other housing groups
• City Comptroller William Thompson thinks Wal-Mart is spying on its shareholders - is that better, worse, or the same as keeping employees locked up?

It looks like some advances in technology are causing some problems at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. The $5.4 billion complex of buildings is replacing all its regular old keys with fancy electronic key-cards - in the case of Peter Cooper Village, the cards are already being used. The Post reports that Stuy Town residents could be using the new key system as early as next week. This is somewhat of an issue for Orthodox Jews on the Sabbath and religious holidays because they are forbidden to use the key technology during those days. One Stuy Town resident told The Post, "They are making us prisoners in our own homes. What do they want us to do? It's not like we can go somewhere else. It's our home." Well, what they obviously want you to do is move out so they can charge more rent to the next tenant.

With the record setting $5.4 billion sale of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village to Tishman Speyer last year, many residents suspected that the new owners would shake things up. But we doubt few tenants would have anticipated the rent increases sent in lease renewal papers. The NY Times speaks with some tenants about their sticker shock. The verdict? A lot of people are moving out. Check out these rents and the increases:

Two months after Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village were sold by MetLife to Tishman Speyer for a record-breaking $5.4 billion, an epic review of the deal by Charles Bagli of the NY Times ties up loose ends and brings several underlying issues into sharper focus. Reading between the lines:

What do slumlords, apartment-seekers, and big real estate developers around the city have in common? Not much. But the latest debate in City Hall should have all of them closely watching the reforms of 421-a, a bill that will decide the future of New York City’s affordable housing policy and long-term housing stock if passed by the state legislature.

Yesterday, it was announced that Tishman Speyer's $5.4 billion bid for Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village was successful, making it the largest real estate deal in history. But what's interesting is that the second bid from Apollo was $5.33 billion. We wonder if Apollo executives are "What if"-ing right now. The bid organized by tenants to preserve middle-class housing was $4.5-4.9 billion - well behind the other bids - and City Councilman Daniel Garodnick, Peter Cooper resident, who worked on the tenants' bid said, “Eventually, I think what you will see is a market-rate, gated community, which is what MetLife was pitching to all the potential bidders.”

The City Council has introduced a bill to stall the sale of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village. At the end of August, MetLife announced it would seek bids for the 110 building complex that spans 80 acres in Manhattan, with an ideal asking price of $5 billion. The sale sent tenants of STPCV into a frenzy, worrying about their status there, as well as advocates for affordable housing, as all signs point to developers taking the land for a luxury development. Last week, many bids were submitted, and one of the bids was from the tenants - $4.5 billion to "preserve at least 40 percent of the complexes as middle-class housing" - which is half a billion below bids from other developers in the running, according to the NY Times. The Times also explains the bill:

The legislation, introduced by Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, would require the owners of large-scale apartment complexes where more than half the units are rent-regulated to provide 120 days’ notice of a sale. The city’s housing department, in turn, would asses the impact of losing large numbers of apartments for low-, moderate- and middle-income tenants.

Continue reading "Council Intervention on Behalf of Stuyvessant Tenants' Bid?"

-- Whoops! 330 students were incorrectly made to repeat the fifth grade.

There's a wonderful feature on department store Lord & Taylor by Toni Schlesinger in the Observer today. Earlier in the summer, it was announced that the Lord & Taylor chain had been sold to an investor group including the folks that backed the Time-Warner Center; though the deal isn't finalized yet, when Schlesinger wonders if condos could be built on top of the 424 Fifth Avenue location, lead investor Richard Baker says, "Yes, we could build on top. But we have made no decision what to do with the existing building." And he added, “I’m getting a lot of e-mails: ‘Don’t mess with Lord & Taylor!’”

There may be some high-flying developers and investors interested in buying Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, but the underdog bidders to capture the public's heart of the sale might just be the tenants of STPCV themselves. Really: The Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association reports that tenants are interested in forming an investor group to make a bid. A tenants-investor group would try to preserve stability for tenants - both market rate and rent-stabilized. Now, how a group of tenants will get billions ready for a bid is another question, but it'll be interesting to see how the tenants fight the sale of the complex. City Councilman Dan Garodnick, who lives in Stuy Town-Peter Cooper Village, is working with the tenants' association (he even tried to visit all 100 buildings in the complex during his election run last year!).

As news of what could be the biggest real estate deal in history spread, residents of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village - and the rest of New York City - wondered what this could mean for the real estate market. Though selling the 110 building complex and changing over ownership of all the units would probably take years, questions about what Mayor Bloomberg will do about the city's housing policy arose, as well as what this will mean for the middle class residents who live there as a large swath of housing is taken away. The Tenants Political Action Committee tells the NY Sun, "This sale is the perfect illustration of the hole in the bottom of the bucket of the Bloomberg housing plan. The plan deals only with production. They will never build as much as we're losing."