From left: 3 Park Avenue and Charles Cohen

Publishing house Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is the newest tenant at the Cohen Brothers Realty Corporation’s 3 Park Avenue.

Houghton Mifflin signed a 12-year lease at the building, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Boston-based company will be moving its trade publishing division from 215 Park Avenue South to the new location at 3 Park Avenue, which is located between 33rd and 34th streets, in January 2016. The publisher will occupy the 19th floor and parts of the 18th floor, the newspaper reported.

Asking rents at the tower were in the high $60s.

Creative and technology tenants have been moving into the area. In the past, mostly traditional Park Avenue tenants such as law firms looked to lease space in the neighborhood. [WSJ, 3rd] — Claire Moses

Rendering of the new FreshDirect headquarters in the South Bronx

1. FreshDirect to break ground on new South Bronx facility [Crain's]
2. New towers in Williamsburg, Brooklyn [NYT]
3. Brooklyn businesses get “googled” [Crain's]
4. Andrew Cuomo to hold inauguration speech at One World Trade Center [WSJ]
5. An extreme real estate gift guide [Curbed]
6. The problem with PATH’s Newark expansion [Second Avenue Sagas]
7. Hip hop museum coming to Harlem [NYDN]
8. ‘Tis the season of Christmas decorations [Gothamist]

— Claire Moses

75 East 125th Street

A house of worship on 125th Street that is more than a half-century-old will have to make way for a new mixed-use apartment building.

Greystone & Co. is planning to construct a 12-story, 75-unit apartment building with retail space at the location of Samuels Temple Church of God in Christ. The church has been located at 75 East 125nd Street for 54 years. Greystone & Co. acquired the uptown properties at a federal Bankruptcy Court auction

Reverend Shirley Sutton and her son Pastor Tyrone Holmes used to own the parcels, according to the New York Daily News. Last year, they filed suit against a pair of Brooklyn-based developers who allegedly failed to deliver on their promise to rebuild the property. Samuels Temple received a $1 million settlement, according to the newspaper.

“The next step is to find my mom a church where she can worship and do her programs,” Holmes told the newspaper. “I don’t want her to miss any Sunday.” [NYDN] — Claire Moses

120-122 Water Street

Peter Poon is designing a new hotel in the Financial District, according to a permit application filed with the city today.

NY Times Square Hotel Group is developing the hotel at 120 Water Street, which is slated to stand 31 stories tall and span roughly 42,000 square feet. Li Hui Lo, president of the NY Times Square Hotel Group, bought 120-122 Water Street — located between Wall and Pine streets — for $15 million in April. 

Massey Knakal had the listing, with an original asking price of nearly $20 million.

The hotel will have 150 rooms, according to the application with the Department of Buildings. The property will include an eating establishment as well, according to the application. In total, the site can hold 47,813 buildable square feet.

The hotel will be located next to the 26-story Holiday Inn Express at 126 Water Street.

A representative for Peter Poon Architects was not immediately available for comment on Monday morning. Poon is also designing a 21-story hotel in Chelsea as well as a 31-story hotel near the South Street Seaport, among other projects.

Two buildings, one four-story and one five-story, are located on the site. Applications to demolish those have not yet been filed.

281 Fifth Avenue in NoMad massing diagrams

Victor Homes is reportedly shopping a 51-story Rafael Viñoly design for a condominium tower at 281 Fifth Avenue to foreign investors. 

Massing diagrams revealed to potential EB-5 investors show a cantilevered design to rise at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 30th Street, in the NoMad section of Midtown South, according to New York YIMBY.

The proposed design includes 250,065 total square feet, to be spread over ground floor retail and luxury residences on the upper levels.

The developer paid $99 million for the site in June, acquiring the three-story site of a former deli in addition to a package of development and air rights that were amassed by former owners Kushner Real Estate Group and Ironstate Development Company.

Viñoly’s New York City designs include the John Jay College of Criminal Justice on 10th Avenue, the Bronx Housing Court and a redesign of the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at City College. [NY YIMBY] — Tess Hofmann

Lawyers for developers Ben and Izzy Ashkenazy and Izzy’s business partner Jonathan Igus are in talks to resolve potential contempt citations for allegedly failing to appear for depositions. Those depositions are tied to loan defaults and $5 million in judgments related to the now-defunct Anglo Irish Bank.

Lawyers for Wells Fargo and Dallas-based Lone Star Funds — which acquired the distressed debt from Anglo Irish — filed suit Dec. 11 to enforce a subpoena on Ben Ashkenazy and Ashkenazy Acquisition.
The banks allege that Ben Ashkenazy signed fraudulent transfers of $1.2 million in assets between his father Izzy and his mother Shula.

Attorneys for the lenders threatened to ask the court to hold the parties in contempt for failure to appear at depositions scheduled for November and fine them $1,000 a day or face possible arrest.

When reached by The Real Deal, attorney Kevin Nash, whose firm represents Ben Ashkenazy, Izzy Ashkenazy and Igus, said the contempt motions were “being resolved.”

Anglo Irish originally filed suit in 2010 alleging that Izzy Ashkenazy and Jonathan Igus, the principals of Igus Ventures, defaulted on an $11.4 million loan for a Boca Raton property. That case resulted in a judgment of $3.4 million. Anglo Irish was awarded a separate judgment of $1.6 million in connection with loans at a Texas property and one in Florida. Those judgments were unrelated to Ben Ashkenazy.

Anglo Irish sold those defaulted loans to Lone Star, the Dallas-based fund that acquired distressed debt from the Irish lender. According to the suit filed Dec. 11 by Lone Star and Wells Fargo, Ben Ashkenazy has allegedly ignored subpoenas issued to get additional information and restraining notices served in April and May.

The lenders also allege that contempt motions are pending in New Jersey where Izzy and his wife are residents.

Ben Ashkenazy did not return calls, nor did lawyers for the lenders. A spokesperson for Wells Fargo said the bank could not comment at this time.

In December, Ashkenazy was reportedly in contract to purchase the Marriott East Side hotel for $290 million.

Rendering of 55 Wythe Avenue in Williamsburg (Credit: Albo Liberis) (Inset: Josh Zegen)

Developer Zelig Weiss secured more than $81 million in financing for the 260,000-square-foot Level Hotel project slated for Williamsburg, The Real Deal has learned.

The $130 million development at 55 Wythe Avenue, between North 12th and 13th streets, will hold 183 hotel rooms as well as 40,000 square feet of offices and 20,000 square feet of retail. Plans also call for a 20,000-square-foot rooftop garden open to the public.

Josh Zegen’s Madison Realty Capital served as the sole lender. The financing includes a $63 million construction loan and an $18.3 million bridge loan that was used to acquire the site in May.

The loans were finalized earlier this month. Weiss paid $30 million for the site, as previously reported.

The project is now entirely financed, Zegen told TRD.

“This fully capitalizes the deal,” Zegen said. “Every dollar is spoken for.”

Andy Nemeroff and Michael Nemeroff of Imperial Capital Company represented Madison, while Joel Friedman of Nationwide Realty represented Weiss. 

The first floor of the building is in the process of being constructed, Zegen said. The hotel is expected to open by early 2016, he said. Architects Yohay Albo and Nicholas Liberis are behind the futuristic design.

304 and 298 Mulberry Street in Greenwich Village

Broad Street Development purchased two Noho apartment buildings for a combined $178.5 million.

The properties sit across the street from the Puck Building at 298 and 304 Mulberry Street in Noho. They buildings house 182 apartments, 11,825 square feet of ground floor retail facing Mulberry and Houston Streets, and a parking garage.

HFF’s Andrew Scandalios, Jeffrey Julien and Rob Hinckley represented GID in the transaction. Mike Tepedino, Michael Gigliotti and Sam Nidenberg of HFF arranged financing, with Michael Eglit and Michael Henry of Blackstone for 304 Mulberry Street and Rob Dirks of Principal Real Estate Investors for 298 Mulberry Street.

Eli Dweck of Wachtel Missry represented Broad Street in the transaction.

The buyers are immediately embarking on a $3.5 million renovation, which will include new window installations, new roofs and roof decks, lobby redesigns, modernization of interior areas, and upgrades to kitchens and bathrooms, according to a release.

“Given our intimate knowledge of this neighborhood and our respect for its historic standing and desirability, we see a great opportunity to add value to these assets by enhancing the product and meeting the market’s strong rental demand,” said Broad Street principal Raymond Chalme in a statement.

Broad Street made the purchase with its investment partner Crow Holdings, a national real estate investment fund. The seller was Boston-based GID Investment Advisors.

Earlier this year, Broad Street sold out 25 units at prices upwards of $3,000 per square foot at its nearby 215 Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village in just four months.– Tess Hofmann

Rendering of Montreign Resort Casino in Thompson, N.Y.

Empire Resorts is mulling a potential residential component for its proposed $1.1 billion casino in the Catskills region.

Empire Resorts and EPR Properties last week were one of three teams selected by New York State’s Gaming Facility Location Board to build a Las Vegas-style casino upstate. The proposal for the Montreign Resort Casino in Thompson, N.Y. included 61 tables, 2,150 slot machines, a 391-room hotel, an indoor water park, a golf course, and a 200,000 square foot “entertainment village.”

Now, the developer is considering expanding its plans, including possibly adding residential, installing a shooting range, and updating its racetrack and racino in nearby Monticello, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“It’s not going to be: come here and play a slot machine,” Emanuel Pearlman, chair of Empire Resorts, told the newspaper. “There are going to be many reasons to come here … I’m pretty much open to anything,” he said.

Depending on the success of the Montreign and the Adelaar (the name for the non-casino amenities), Pearlman said they might develop land with retail or entertainment. EPR Properties owns 1,700 acres at the proposed site in Thompson. [WSJ] — Tess Hofmann

1. Douglas Elliman is getting ready to hit the slopes
2. Tips on keeping closing costs low
3. 5 things you didn’t know about the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree

Like The Real Deal on Facebook for breaking industry stories, links to quirkier pieces and lively conversation about important properties in New York and around the world. [TRD's Facebook Page]

From left: Wendy Sarasohn, BHS’ Hall Willkie and Corcoran’s Pamela Liebman

Wendy Sarasohn, a top-ranked agent at the Corcoran Group, joined Brown Harris Stevens today, The Real Deal has learned. Sarasohn, who sold $100 million in real estate in 2012, is bringing daughter Jamie Joseph with her to BHS.

Sarasohn, the latest agent to leave Corcoran in a string of defections, joined the firm in 1988, when she was named Corcoran’s Rookie of the Year.

To date, Sarasohn and Joseph have sold more than $800 million in real estate. Sarasohn was named Corcoran’s top Manhattan agent in 2012. Tania Isacoff, who is moving to BHS with the pair, joined their team four years ago.

Among Sarasohn’s recent deals was the $17.25 million sale of a condo at One Beacon Court in September. She’s also handled multiple listings for boldfaced names, including singer-songwriter Bob Gaudio of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, who listed his two-bedroom at the San Remo for $5.95 million this summer. Last year, Sarasohn had a $10.5 million listing for an Upper East Side clapboard house with a backyard tree house. The seller: Cynthia Rivera, the ex-wife of TV personality Geraldo Rivera. Several years ago, Sarasohn was a listing agent for fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld’s co-op at 50 Gramercy Park North.

Sarasohn is joining BHS’ newly-expanded flagship office at 445 Park Avenue.

BHS has been adding agents in recent weeks, even as it lost former top agent Kyle Blackmon to Urban Compass.

In early December, Corcoran’s Robby Browne and Maria Pashby moved to BHS, as did Wendy Richardson, Daniella Schlisser, Ellen Klein and Sungwon Hwang. In October, Robert Doernberg joined BHS from Warburg.

From left: Mark Geragos, 7 West 24th Street and Steve Witkoff

Attorney-to-the-stars Mark Geragos is planning to convert a mixed-use building next door to Steve Witkoff’s 10 Madison Square West. 

Geragos, whose list of clients includes Kesha and Mike Tyson — as well as plaintiffs in the ongoing sexual-harassment lawsuit against real estate website Zillow — recently paid $9.5 million to purchase a five-story building from Witkoff. The property is near Witkoff’s 10 Madison Square West condo conversion.

Witkoff had purchased the 9,282-square-foot building at 7 West 24th Street in a foreclosure auction along with the adjacent International Toy Center building in 2011 for nearly $190 million. With a pair of penthouses priced at $35 million and above in contract, the condo conversion appears to be a smash success.

While Geragos’ building doesn’t enjoy eight-figure views of Madison Square Park and landmarks such as the Flatiron and New York Life buildings, it does come with development rights that could more than double the size of the current building on the site to nearly 24,000 square feet.

“He intends to develop it to its full potential for residential purposes,” said attorney Tina Glandian, Geragos’s longtime partner at the Geragos & Geragos firm.

Glandian, who represented Geragos as his broker in the deal.

At roughly $400 per buildable square foot, it’s not unreasonable that Glandian could convert the building into rentals. Glandian said the owner is mulling over whether or not the project works out best as rental or condo.

Bob Knakal and John Ciraulo of Massey Knakal represented Witkoff in the sale.

Geragos owns other properties in the city. In 2012 he paid $8 million to purchase a landmarked Fifth Avenue building that serves as the New York office of his Los Angeles-based law firm, and in January he bought a $4.75-million townhouse in the West Village.

32 Old Slip and Mitchell Arkin (credit: Patrick McMullan)

Less than a month after RXR Realty entered contract to buy a Downtown office building for $675 million, a health care advertising firm inked a lease there for 55,000 square feet.

The Cement Bloc will occupy the full 15th floor and part of the 16th floor at the 1.2 million-square-foot tower at 32 Old Slip. The tenant plans to consolidate its offices in Chelsea and the Flatiron District into the new Downtown space.

Asking rent is in the low $40s per square foot, Crain’s reported, citing unnamed sources.

Beacon Capital Partners owns the property. A CBRE Group team represented the landlord, while a Cushman & Wakefield team led by Haley Fisher and Mitchell Arkin represented the Cement Bloc. [Crain's] — Mark Maurer

Clock Tower building at 29-27 41st Avenue and rendering of Ascent Development’s 11-51 47th Avenue in LIC

With Long Island City land prices blowing up and the neighborhood’s demographics shifting to an older, more monied crowd, developers are increasingly considering condo development in this area dominated by rental apartments.

Developer Sam Charney, who is building condos in the neighborhood with partner Ascent Development, said: “We witnessed this neighborhood go from a renter’s neighborhood where people who couldn’t afford to be in Manhattan moved here in their mid-20s… Now they’re in their mid-30s, having children, and they’ve saved up a little money,” according to Bloomberg.

Charney is currently completing a 3-unit building at 5-41 47th Road and has plans for a 54-condo tower three blocks away at 11-51 47th Avenue.

This mindset signals a shift from the neighborhood’s rental-building craze that was triggered by a 2001 rezoning, which allowed higher-density towers to be built within the 37-block manufacturing hubs of Queens Plaza and Court Square.

Partially as a result, rentals flooded the market, with 6,100 units added in the past eight years, according to data from the Long Island City Partnership. Currently, 19,700 rentals are planned or under construction in the neighborhood, compared to only 518 condos — hence Charney’s conclusion that there is a void to be filled.

In addition, rising land prices are making rental development less of an appealing option. Price per buildable square foot in Long Island City jumped 27 percent this year through September, Bloomberg reported.

“Now everybody’s talking about doing condos [in Long Island City.] With land prices shooting up dramatically from where they were a couple of years ago, it doesn’t really pencil out for a developer to do a rental,” said Eric Benaim, president and chief executive officer of brokerage Modern Spaces.

Property Markets Group is also reportedly considering condos as part of its plan for LIC’s Clock Tower building.

[Bloomberg] – Tess Hofmann

406 Manhattan Avenue in Brooklyn and Mark Ginsberg

Simon Dushinsky’s Rabsky Group filed permits today for a seven-story, 50-unit apartment building in South Williamsburg.

The property at 406 Manhattan Avenue, near Frost Street, is expected to hold 43,000 square feet of residential space – with apartments averaging 860 square feet apiece. Floors two through six will each hold eight apartments. Curtis + Ginsberg Architects is serving as the architect of record.

The zoning code requires the site to offer 25 parking spaces, though the permit shows none. The Brooklyn-based developer paid $9.7 million for the three lots, which hold several low-rise brick properties.

In October, Dushinsky paid $53 million for 12 properties in Bushwick, as The Real Deal reported. [NY YIMBY] — Mark Maurer

Truman Capote’s former home at 70 Willow Street in Brooklyn Heights

1. Landmarks to weigh changes to Truman Capote’s ex-abode [Brownstoner]
2. Hurricane Sandy victims offered rent reprieve [NYDN]
3. Philip Glass fights NYU expansion by donating work [DNAinfo]
4. Rent-stabilized Greenpointers still locked out after one year [Brooklyn Paper]
5. A closer look at Cushman & Wakefield’s acquisition of Massey Knakal [WSJ]
6. Harlem residents protest demolition of Renaissance Theater [NYT]
7. You can sign a petition to save Coney Island’s boardwalk [Brooklyn Paper]

From left: 677 Fifth Avenue and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

UPDATED, 9:25 a.m., Dec. 23: Microsoft’s retail lease taking several floors at 677 Fifth Avenue was the most expensive store deal signed in 2014, ranked by estimated annual rent, a survey by The Real Deal found.

The computer hardware and software firm is paying an estimated $17 million at 677 Fifth Avenue, a seven-story building located between 53rd and 54th, owned by Kingsville Investments, several sources said.

“The Microsoft store at Fifth Avenue will be much more than a standard retail store and in addition to retail, there will be experiential space for Microsoft as a company to further engage with our customers and partners in new ways,” a spokesperson for the Redmond, Washington, the tech firm said in a statement to TRD. The company declined to comment on the rent figure.

Financial information is tightly guarded and comparable leases — known in the trade as “comps” — are shared among brokers sparingly. Since no one spoke on the record, we are considering these figures as estimates. Often sources provided different figures. Some insiders estimated, for example, that the rent Microsoft is paying is $16 million while other pegged it closer to $17.5 million, so our analysis settled on $17 million.

Following that was the clothing store Topshop, taking 45,000 square feet at 608 Fifth Avenue, at the corner of 49th Street, paying an estimated rent of $15 million.

The next most expensive leases were Bottega Venata paying about $8 million per year for space at 740 Madison Avenue, Restoration Hardware’s deal at 9-19 Ninth Avenue, for $9 million, the NBA taking space at 545 Fifth Avenue for $7.5 million and shoe retailer Skechers USA  inking at deal at SL Green Realty’s 1515 Broadway for $7 million per year.

Despite the concentration of the most valuable retail along Upper Fifth Avenue and Times Square, the top 10 most expensive leases were signed in a wide variety of retail shopping districts. They ranged from Zara’s lease at 222 Broadway in Lower Manhattan up to Lowe’s Home Improvement at 2008 Broadway, at 68th Street.

Correction: A previous version of this article had an incorrect number of square feet for the Bottega Veneta lease, and was missing the landlord agents on that deal.

From left: Donald Capoccia and Arlington Terrace on Staten Island

BFC Partners is buying a 536-unit property on Staten Island for $75 million. As part of the deal, the developer will rehabilitate and preserve the Mitchell Lama complex as affordable apartments.

BFC struck an agreement with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the Housing Development Corporation and Preservation Development Partners to buy Arlington Terrace, according to Capital New York. The complex is located on Staten Island’s North Shore and includes four 13-story towers.

The complex also includes four walk-up townhouse properties. BFC is planning to rebrand the development as North Shore Plaza.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has said that the city is on track to create or preserve 16,000 affordable housing units by the end of the year, according to Capital New York.

In September, BFC — together with L+M Development — bought a 50 percent stake in almost 900 apartments in the New York City Housing Authority’s portfolio. BFC is also developing Empire outlets, an outlet mall with a hotel, in St. George, also on the North Shore. [Capital NY] — Claire Moses