Monday, October 19, 2015

[Updated] Reports: Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village will be hitting the market

According to published reports, the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village complex is being prepped for a sale.

Per the The Wall Street Journal:

CWCapital Asset Management LLC, a special servicer that represents bondholders of the property’s debt, has hired Doug Harmon at Eastdil Secured LLC to advise it on the sales process, according to a written statement issued by the company on Sunday. The statement said that the owners are able to move ahead with a sale because CWCapital has “finalized in principle the settlement of the outstanding litigation.”

A CWCapital spokesman declined to comment further, but people familiar with the matter say the owner is hoping to sell it for at least $5 billion.

And here's more from Bloomberg, who first reported on the potential sale on Saturday:

A sale of Stuyvesant Town, home to about 30,000 New Yorkers, would end the squabbling and litigation that has plagued residents, bondholders and politicians since 2010, when Tishman Speyer and BlackRock Inc. gave up the property after its value plunged in the financial crisis and they were unable to raise rents.

Guess this is why the owners of Associated aren't having any luck negotiating with CWCapital for a lease renewal on East 14th Street.

Updated 9:39 p.m.

The Blackstone Group is partnering with Canadian investment firm Ivanhoe Cambridge to buy Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village for $5.3 billion. Read more at The Real Deal.

Image via

27 comments:

Gojira said...

Amazing to think that Met Life owned and ran these giant complexes for almost 60 years, during which they were low-key, middle-class enclaves of stability, while in the 9 years since they were first sold, they have steadily been turned into frat housing, resulting in a flurry of lawsuits, complaints, rising rents, and now, apparently, a third sale in less than a decade. Priceless.

Anonymous said...

Ugh... I really hate comments trying to liken the past 60 years of management to now. This may come as a news shock to most of you but when Metlife own and ran that complex it was originally bought and sold with the rent stabilized apartments equating to the sale price. These days, the sale price is based on potential income if all apartments are changed to market rate.

The major changing factor of the neighborhood isn't the people buying the properties. Rather it is the old owners who are cashing out and not selling them for an amount of money that anyone with a social conscience could afford. Therfore the people buying them have to make changes inorder to stay afloat... In this case... It didnt work and the complex is back up for sale....

The real bad guys are the original owners, who bought properties for back taxes and now are cashing in and saying, "Fuck the 'hood!!"

Anonymous said...

Give me a break 1:50. Tishman Speyer wanted an overnight ROI on the other people's money they spent. Which is why they hired several law firms to investigate rent stabilized tenants to find reasons to evict, created QOL issues for rent stabilized tenants by pumping in college kids, and tying the hands of public security to do anything. Rapes, madmen running around with ice picks, people jumping off roofs - Met Life didn't have this problem. Campos Plaza is safer these days.

Anonymous said...

Charles Bagli of the Times wrote a whole book about the sale:
http://www.npr.org/2013/04/03/175511949/the-botched-ny-real-estate-deal-that-lost-other-people-billions

Anonymous said...

I guess this explains all of the work planned for my building (and I imagine many, if not all, others). We are getting an upgraded video intercom system, new carpet and paint in all the hallways, etc.
My family and I are finishing up our 3rd year in StuyTown and it has been a terrific experience for us so far. If not for the fact that we are anxious to own our own place again we would probably continue to stay.

blue glass said...

how long before the entire complex is market rate?
where are all the "old" folks going to go?
it is a shame that we are living in such a greed-fueled economy.
i can't blame anyone for taking advantage of the situation.
you can't know when you will be the next victim.

Anonymous said...

New intercoms? To replace the new intercoms of 2008? Please. Enjoy them! You'll get an MCI for them.

Anonymous said...

I was walked by the fountain in StuyTown today and there was a sign out advertising how StuyTown and Peter Cooper residents can sign up for a CitiBike trial and get one month free. I was kind of annoyed as I live nearby in an old tenement building and wasn't offered the one month free deal. I guess it is only for the upper class.

Giovanni said...

I just heard a rumor that Ben Shaoul is planning to buy StuyTown and plans to tear down all the buildings in order to build the world's biggest Turkish Kebab and Felafel restaurant. He will be changing the name to Bereket Town. It's just a rumor but you never know.

Anonymous said...

Tishman managed to take a stable community that existed in Stuy Town & PCV for many decades, and in short order they made it into a bankrupt shambles. Nice going, you greedy jerks!

I know people who've lived in Stuy Town for ages but who still had to get a lawyer and defend themselves to "prove" they were legit tenants (and no, they don't own second homes elsewhere now, nor did they ever own a second home) - so in my view, Tishman definitely deserves everything shitty that happened to them.

Now we'll see what nonsense goes on with the next owners. I'm sure that visions of $$$$$$$ dance in their heads! Tenants, to them, are a necessary evil.

I'm glad to be an older person in this era when humanity is routinely being stripped out of so many aspects of NYC living. Had NYC been like this when I was younger, I'd never have stayed here.

Anonymous said...

I heard that Ess-a-Bagel was planning to rent one of the empty StuyTown stores (Radio Shack and GameStop both closed down). Good luck getting any kind of decent rent deal out of these vultures now.

Anonymous said...

I heard Tampon Hut and Frofessional Organizing was moving in.

Anonymous said...

Selling it for $5 billion was a disastrous idea the first time around, so why not try it again?

@6:48, the goblin Shaoul is Iranian Jewish, not Turkish...

Anonymous said...

These are rental not Mitchell Lama

Anonymous said...

I need a professional organizer. I agonize over my clutter. Hiring a professional to snoop around my apartment and find unused space may be the help I need.

Anonymous said...

Why would you let a stranger into your apartment to snoop around? That sounds like a Law and Order episode. People are crazy these days.

Anonymous said...

Mitchell Llama

Anonymous said...

It's Miller time!

Anonymous said...

So, it changes hands from BlackRock to Blackstone, while the (completely unrealistic/unsustainable) price goes up from $5 billion to $5.3 billion.

Talk about "same shit, different day".

It would appear these buyers are counting on the Age of Bailouts never ending.

Giovanni said...

@9:18 PM The beloved felafel place on the corner of Houston St. and Orchard that Ben Shaoul paid $75 million for the right to tear down was called Bereket Turkish Kebab House. It would be quite fitting in this crazy world for him to spend $5 billion to tear down StuyTown and replace it with the world's largest Turkish felafel and kebab house. And can you imagine the views?

Morgan Tsvangirai said...

A couple things:

-That NPR story that was linked does a pretty good job of breaking down what happened with the previous sale

-The price paid is $5.3 billion which is less than the $5.4 billion that stuy town was sold for in 2006

This part of the new deal is interesting:
The sale, to the Blackstone Group, a Wall Street investment firm and one of the country’s largest landlords, includes an unusual regulatory agreement with the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio that would ensure that a block of 5,000 apartments would be affordable for the next 20 years for families of teachers, construction workers, firefighters and others who have traditionally made their homes at Stuyvesant Town.

Twenty years is nothing, but who knows what the city will look like by then

-Where the hell is Ess-A? I've been going to Tompkins square bagels since Ess-a has been gone, but their pumpernickel bagel is really lacking

Anonymous said...

What no one has mentioned is that the J-51 tax break expires in 2020. So, in about 3+ years there'll be no rent stabilization thus Blackstone will finally (I say finally, since this is what Tishman Speyer tried to do illegally when they purchase the complex in 2007) luxufy Stuy Towm/Peter Cooper Village and draw an upscale clientele (whic the comple is already doing so) in the market for luxury apartments. Blackstone is gambling on this; they'll take the 'loss' in the 3+ years under the J-51 and make up that 'loss' by significantly raising the rent once they ave kicked out the rent stabilized renters and even more than the market rates. There are a lot of people willing to pay to live 'luxuriously' here. Stuy/Town is hot a piece of RE commodity. College students, post-college grads, bankers, and tech bros all want to be in the same complex so that they can have the chance for a hook-up by their own kind via meeting in the elevator.

Used to live in Stuy/Town. I moved, in addition to the college dorm that it has become, because the people who have moved in are very suspicious of those that are not their kind. Let's just say I'm not their kind. Whenever I try to hold the door (building or elevator) open for them, they look me up and down and often times they say no as if I am about to do harm to them. A couple of times, had my street clothes on and had boxes of junk to be thrown out and they approach me to \to ask when can I throw they junks/garbage out thinking I am maintenance crew. And when I am walking home late at night and they, on their way for a nigh-out, see me entering the complex, they walk across the street and clutch their bags. Soon, once the tax break expires, the tenants will consist of nothing but a bunch of Taylor Swifters. But that's neither here nor there.

And another addendum, I used to work for MetLife when they sold the complex. Let's just say that they knew that the RE estate market was going to tank thus they sold it at the peak of the housing market.

As for Blackstone and Ivanhoe, they are just another investment firms trying to park large sums of money in a single asset. They don't care about neighborhoods or communities.

Billsville said...

Ess a Bagel is still in limbo, those 2 empty stores on 1st Ave in StuyTown are not rented even though rumors say Ess is moving into one of them. Try the new Tal Bagels in Ess A Bagels old location on 21st St. They're pretty good and the staff and space is very nice

Anonymous said...

J-51 expiration wasn't the major issue, it was the renewal of the rent stabilization laws. The 2020 J-51 affects those tenants who were part of the Roberts litigation, and they are now protected until 2025. The renewal of the rent stabilization laws in Albany is a separate issue.

Giovanni said...

Here's the money quote. StuyTown residents, remember it every month when you're filling out that market rate rent check:

“It’s a war,” Schwarzman said of the struggle with the Obama administration over increasing taxes on private-equity firms. “It’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.”

-- Stephen Schwarzman, the chairman and cofounder of the Blackstone Group, July 2010

Anonymous said...

The real issue here, is when is that damned 1st avenue Chipotle gonna open already?!

Anonymous said...

Tishman managed to take a stable community that existed in Stuy Town & PCV for many decades, and in short order they made it into a bankrupt shambles"

I guess I remember it differently - I remember tenants who were there for 30 plus years in way below market rate rentals with their children lined up to inherit the apartments when they retired I also remember a 10 -15 wait list for apartments so no chance for anyone who moved into the city to get an apartment in Sty town.

I also remember meeting a few tenants who had second homes upstate (which is illegal in rent stabilization laws). A few more tenants illegally subletting their apartments for market rate and making good money on them.

So I actually don't really feel sorry for the few tenants left who are still paying way below market rate
I think 60 plus years is enough