137 Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side (inset: From left, Joy Handler, Fabienne Lecole and William Randolph Hearst)

A triplex penthouse at 137 Riverside Drive once owned by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst has chopped its asking price to $24 million, a $14 million discount from the original ask.

The unit’s current owner, Benedict Silverman, a businessman and art collector who bought the place in the 1990s, also switched brokerages, from Brown Harris Stevens to the Corcoran Group’s Joy Handler and Fabienne Lecole. The pad originally hit the market in March 2014 for $38 million.

Hearst bought the entire Upper West Side building for less than $1 million in 1913, the New York Daily News reported. The 7,000-square-foot apartment contains seven bedrooms and seven-and-a-half bathrooms and has an additional 7,000 square feet of outdoor terrace space.

The home also features a Tiffany chandelier and a glass-enclosed solarium looking out over the Hudson River. “The penthouse is an aesthetic tour de force,” Handler said. [NYDN] — Tess Hofmann 

From left: Kathy Braddock, Bill Raveis and Paul Purcell

Bill Raveis waited nearly four decades before he brought his eponymous real estate firm to New York City. But nearly a year since planting a flag here, William Raveis NYC’s teething troubles have persisted. The firm has lost its headline recruits and had to put the brakes on a plan to launch a new development division.

But Raveis, who borrowed $2,000 in 1974 to launch his firm – a firm which last year sold more than $8 billion worth of real estate – has always been a long-term player, and he’s willing to tweak his approach to make it work.

“These things are a slow roast,” he told The Real Deal during an interview last week at the firm’s offices at East 56th Street, his tan complexion and vivid blue eyes offset by a navy suit and snowy dress shirt with cufflinks.

“We’re not going broke if it doesn’t happen in a week,” he added.  “We’re building a culture.”

Raveis said his “appetite” for big producers was, in retrospect, unwise. In the fall, William Raveis NYC hired name-brand brokers such as Corcoran Group’s Fabienne Lecole and Halstead Property’s Julia Boland. Both Lecole and Boland, however left the firm for Corcoran in March. William Raveis subsequently put its new development sales business here on hold.

“That was a big learning lesson,” Raveis said. “It recentered us.” He’s now shifting the focus to workhorses, eyeing agents who may not necessarily have a track record of big numbers, but can hustle and build a business for themselves.

Companywide, William Raveis has 110 offices and a stronghold in Connecticut, where the firm is headquartered. Last year, it tapped industry veterans Paul Purcell, a former president of Douglas Elliman, and business partner Kathy Braddock to launch William Raveis NYC. Both were top executives at Elliman and are credited with building up Rutenberg Realty.

Raveis has toyed with the idea of entering New York City before. In 2011, he came close to buying a stake in Neil Binder’s the Bellmarc Group, a firm that is now mired in financial woes and is seeing a mass exodus of agents.

Other out-of-town brokerages have struggled mightily to capture business here, including United Kingdom-based Foxtons, and national bigwigs like Weichert and Coldwell Banker, whose most recent attempt was through an ill-fated affiliation with Bellmarc.

“The competitiveness here is as fierce as it’s ever been,” said Town Residential CEO and founder Andrew Heiberger, who also founded Citi Habitats.

“I think it’s easier to expand out of New York than it is to expand into New York,” he said, citing the competition, intricacies and sophistication of the market here. “You need to have a network here in New York. There’s no shortcut.”

According to Heiberger, the ramp-up time for sales at a typical startup brokerage, could take at least 12 to 18 months. “You need a critical mass [of brokers] in order to service clients and customers,” he said.

Veteran brokerage heads admit that things have only gotten more cutthroat. “There are simply so many more players,” said David Schlamm, who founded City Connections Real Estate nearly 30 years ago. “You either have to have that big, powerful sexiness or branding like Elliman, Corcoran or Sotheby’s,” he said, or have “deep pockets and can afford to go negative for a few years.” As an example of the latter, he cited Town, which is backed by Thor Equities’ Joseph Sitt, and Compass, which raised $73 million from investors.

Raveis, who is financially committed to the New York office, offered a candid look at his learning curve here. “It’s more competitive than I anticipated,” he said, of acrimony between brokerages. (He accused Douglas Elliman of blocking emails from Raveis, as TRD reported last week.)

Raveis said the “angst” between brokerages created a kind of “static” that distracted him from the business, along with New York’s lack of a centralized MLS, REBNY’s unique set of rules and more. “The business models are easy to compete with here,” he said. “It’s the static.”

Fredrik Eklund

From the April issue: A Fredrik Eklund boast is usually not complete without a ranking, record or accompanying superlative. The “Million Dollar Listing New York” star and Douglas Elliman power broker leads the No. 1 real estate team in the U.S., closed $3.5 billion in sales in the past decade and has 100 active listings at any given time, by his count. And with his first book, “The Sell: The Secrets of Selling Anything to Anyone,” he is on pace to break another record. [more]

Rendering of 19 Park Place (Credit: Ismael Leyva Architects)

ABN Realty’s condominium project at 19 Park Place was hit with a full stop-work order over the weekend, after the police were called to inspect a pole hanging from safety netting at the Financial District site.

The Department of Buildings hit the project with the order on April 4, according to Curbed. While the order was subsequently resolved and is no longer active, a partial stop-work order against the site from October due to missing safety netting is still active, according to the DOB’s website, which also shows a string of other complaints related to the project.

The development, designed by architect Ismael Leyva, was previously known as Tribeca Royale and was slated for completion last year. The 21-story building will contain 24 units and is notable for its narrow façade. [Curbed] — Rey Mashayekhi

The site of the East Village explosion at 121 Second Avenue

The probe into the East Village explosion that killed two people and injured more than a dozen is likely to result in homicide charges, according to a high-ranking police official.

The source told the New York Daily News that detectives are looking into possible criminally negligent homicide charges on the part of building owner Maria Hrynenko and contractor Dilber Kukic, along with others, who are suspected of illegally tapping into a gas line that was only meant to serve the first floor of 121 Second Avenue in order to heat apartments on the upper floors.

“This is likely going to end up a homicide case,” the source told the newspaper. “The DA will probably bring it to the grand jury.” The possibility of criminal charges arose last week, but this is the first time that homicide charges have come up.

Two people who were in Sushi Park at the time of the explosion were killed in the blast. 

“No one’s going to be charged for doing sloppy work, but if it can be proved that someone was told to do this, then it’s a criminally negligent homicide,” the source said.

Hrynenko sent her son Michael and Kukic to investigate the source of the gas smell on the afternoon of March 26, the day of the explosion. Both were injured. [NYDN] — Tess Hofmann

260 Madison Avenue (inset: Marcus & Millichap’s J.D. Parker and Alex Sapir)

Investment sales brokerage Marcus & Millichap inked a 10-year deal for its new headquarters in New York City, at the Sapir Organization’s 260 Madison Avenue, The Real Deal has learned.

The 37,000-square-foot space is on the fifth floor of the 22-story office property, between East 38th and 39th streets. It is nearly double the size of the California-headquartered firm’s current offices at neighboring 270 Madison Avenue, according to sources familiar with the deal.

Alan Wildes of Cushman & Wakefield represented Sapir, while Jeffrey Nissani represented Marcus & Millichap in-house.

The brokerage plans to relocate sometime this year, as its lease at ABS Partners’ 270 Madison is set to expire soon. About 250 staffers are expected to work out of the new office.

Asking rent for the space was in the low-$60s per square foot, sources said.

Other tenants at the 531,000-square-foot property include the Coca-Cola Company, Regus and law firm McLaughlin & Stern, which is the largest tenant with 110,000 square feet, according to CoStar Group data.

Last month, Marcus & Millichap brokered Jared Kushner’s $131.5 million purchase of a 16-building multifamily portfolio, as The Real Deal reported. The firm placed 10th in TRD‘s 2014 ranking of investment sales brokerages, with $1.1 billion in dollar volume and 185 total deals.

From left: WeWork’s Miguel McKelvey and Adam Neumann and a rendering of 1460 Broadway

Shared office-space provider WeWork has signed a 19-year lease to take up 180,000 square feet at Himmel + Meringoff and the Swig Company’s 1460 Broadway.

WeWork will take up all of the building’s office space, according to the New York Post. It’s the company‘s first foray into the Times Square area. In total, WeWork has 15 locations on Manhattan, according to the newspaper. In February, WeWork inked a lease for 240,000 square foot at 85 Broad Street.

Rents in the building range from the high $50s to the mid-$60s.

White-shoe law firm Skadden Arps, who previously used the location for back-office services, moved out on March 31, the Post reported. WeWork signed its lease that same day.

The building’s second and third floors remain vacant, but will be combined with the ground-floor retail units when those become available in December, according to the newspaper, to create a sprawling, multi-level, 35,000-square-foot flagship store. [NYP, 1st] — Claire Moses

From left: Jason Kalisman, the rooftop bar at the Mondrian SoHo and Alex Sapir

While the guests at the Mondrian Soho hotel were sleeping, a coup of sorts went on on the ground floor.

The Sapir Organization and Jason Kalisman are fighting over management control of the hotel, the swanky restaurant and the often star-studded bar at 9 Crosby Street, according to the New York Post, and things took a turn for the bizarre Monday.

Sapir, which paid $205 million to buy the hotel out of foreclosure earlier this year, attempted to take control from Kalisman’s Morgans Hotel Group in the wee hours Monday by installing new computer systems while most guests were sleeping and start running the hotel with the same hotel staff, according to the newspaper.

Sapir’s team attempted to slide flyers under the doors of the hotel rooms announcing that the hotel’s new name would be NoMo SoHo, according to the Post. But Kalisman’s team called the police, sources told the newspaper, and then later that day,  a judge issued a temporary restraining order against Sapir.

In turn, Kalisman’s company shoved their own flyers under hotel room doors, stating: “In the early morning hours, Sapir attempted to illegally remove MHG as the operator of the Mondrian Soho. Sapir’s actions at Mondrian SoHo are highly irresponsible and damaging,” according to the flyer obtained by the newspaper.

The Morgans Hotel Group is in the third year of a 10-year contract to manage the 263-room property. [NYP] — Claire Moses

A letter delivered to guests at the Mondrian SoHo (Credit: New York Post)

From left: Steve Witkoff, 30 Central Park South and Gary Barnett

Extell Development’s Gary Barnett has approached the co-op board of 30 Central Park South — a former hotel that now primarily houses dentists’ offices — about a possible purchase. The move could make it challenging for Steve Witkoff and Harry Macklowe, who own the nearby Park Lane Hotel as well as an adjacent rental building, to build a supertall structure at the Park Lane site.

Witkoff and Macklowe bought the Park Lane Hotel for $660 million in 2013, and also own 21 West 58th Street, which is located right behind 30 Central Park South, the New York Times reported.

If both the Park Lane Hotel and 21 West 58th are demolished, the partners could build an 80-story skyscraper at their site. And if 30 Central Park South were incorporated, it could be even taller. But if Barnett takes control of 30 CPS, he could hold up the Witkoff-Macklowe project or build his own project there. He held up a similar project by Vornado Realty Trust at nearby 220 Central Park South, . [NYT] – Claire Moses

A rendering of 19 Ninth Avenue in the Meatpacking District

A 22-year-old construction worker died after an accident at the former home of French bistro Pastis in the Meatpacking District.

The victim has not yet been identified, according to DNAinfo. Aurora Capital Associates and William Gottlieb Real Estate are redeveloping the site into a Restoration Hardware at 19 Ninth Avenue. The man was part of a crew who had dug under the foundation of the building to make a wooden structure that was meant to hold up the building’s facade, the website reported. The 22-year-old got stuck inside the structure, the website reported. As he tried to escape, he was buried up to his neck in dirt. When emergency responders rescued him, the man wasn’t breathing.

“It’s certainly a tragedy and the police and the fire department are investigating what happened,” Marty McLaughlin, an attorney representing the developers, said in a statement.

Last week, a 50-year-old construction worker fell to his death at a Brighton Beach development site. Other recent accidents include the death of a passerby at Rudin Management’s Greenwich Lane in March and the death of a construction worker at Greenland Forest City Parters’ Barclays Center in February. [DNAinfo] — Claire Moses

From left: Adam Mermelstein, 106 West 144th Street and 4321 Broadway

1.) After two years of ownership, Sugar Hill Capital Partners sold a 74-unit mixed-use building at 4321 Broadway in Washington Heights for $18.6 million. It paid $11.4 million for the property in 2013. Burke Leighton Asset Management acquired the building, located on the corner of Broadway, which has 50,000 square feet of residential space and 4,000 square feet of commercial space.

2.) Steps away from Michael Bloomberg’s Upper East Side townhouse, investor Orin Protnoy acquired a five-story mixed-use townhouse at 27 East 79th Street for $15.7 million. The building, which dwarfs the adjacent properties, holds two units and has a total of 24,500 square feet of development rights. Thomas Reynolds is the seller.

3.) In Brooklyn, Sterling Equities, controlled by the Wilpon and Katz families, purchased a Cobble Hill retail site at 252 Court Street for $15.5 million from LA Kane Realty Corp, as The Real Deal reported last month. The building, located on the corner of Kane Street, has four ground-floor commercial units and totals 9,400 square feet. The property has an additional 12,600 square feet of development rights, however, the new owners have not yet filed permits for renovations to the existing building.

4.) Treetop Development acquired four contiguous apartment buildings at 104, 106, 108 and 110 West 144th Street in Central Harlem for $13.3 million. The four five-story properties have a total of 60 units and 51,500 square feet of residential space. The seller is longtime owner 144 St Johanna Associates.

5.) Joyland Management bought a Flatland, Brooklyn development site for $11.5 million.  The site is comprised of vacant land, a Hess gas station and a single townhouse on Avenue I and Nostrand Avenue. The properties consists of 3001, 3003 and 3009 Avenue I as well as 2259, 2263 and 2271 Nostrand Avenue. The development site has over 50,000 square feet of development rights, although no permits have been filed yet for the site. The sellers, Avenue I Associates and Nostrand Development LLC acquired the parcels for $1.8 million in 2007.

6.) A nine-unit Midtown building traded hands for $10.4 million. Sterling Properties NYC picked up the five-story mixed-use building at 129 West 56th Street from Terence and Phyllis Chang, who paid $4.5 million for the property in 2005. The 8,100-square-foot building, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, holds eight apartments and one retail unit. It has 25,100 square feet of development rights.

7.) Prana Investments sold an affordable housing building at 2051 Grand Concourse in the Bronx for $10 million. The corner property holds 63 apartments and a single commercial unit across 54,348 square feet of space. Prana paid nearly $5 million for the building in 2006. The buyer is listed as Parkash 2051 LLC.

(Source: ACRIS data for closed sales between 3/30 to 4/5, PropertyShark data)

Click to enlarge

From the April issue: With a handful of record sales in the past year, there’s no question Manhattan real estate has entered a new stratosphere. But even as asking prices at the very top of the market are shooting up, the city’s priciest closed sales have lagged by comparison. [more]

From left: A rendering of One Vanderbilt and emergency responders on Tuesday morning (Credit: Peter Moreno/Twitter)

At least four people were injured during a construction accident at SL Green’s 331 Madison Avenue, the site where the company’s massive One Vanderbilt is scheduled to rise, on Tuesday morning.

The accident happened at 43rd Street and Madison Avenue around 10 a.m., Channel 7 reported. A chandelier at the site fell, injuring the four men.

“During interior demolition at 331 Madison Avenue this morning, four workers were injured and taken to Bellevue Hospital. The work was being performed by Waldorf Demolition with Tishman Construction acting as construction manager, and there was a licensed site safety manager present,” SL Green responded through a spokesperson. “Safety is our top priority; we’re continuing to monitor the workers’ status and we will release information as soon as it’s available.”

The four injured workers were reportedly conscious and talking.

Reports of a building collapse in Midtown Manhattan. Unsure of number of victims pic.twitter.com/7ComiPrt5n

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) April 7, 2015

Yesterday, a construction worker at the former Pastis site at 19 Ninth Avenue in the Meatpacking District died after being buried in dirt while on the job. [ABC7] — Claire Moses

Rendering of 19 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg (credit: LIFANG) (inset: Toby Moskovits)

Toby Moskovits’ Heritage Equity Partners will seek a special permit to build a 400,000-square-foot office-centric building on the Williamsburg waterfront, an area that is zoned for manufacturing.

The proposed facility would house about 20 percent light manufacturing, with the rest being office space. The building as a whole would accommodate 2,000 to 3,000 workers, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Heritage, which is developing the site with Simon Dushinsky’s Rabsky Group, plans to apply for special permission in the coming weeks, and if the application is accepted, it could set an important precedent for other Williamsburg and Greenpoint manufacturing zones. Debate has been building over how Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration will shape the future of the city’s industrial zones, which are seen as a way to protect well-paying jobs.

Heritage picked up the block-long site at 19 Kent Avenue, between North 12th and 13th streets, for about $30 million in 2012.

“I don’t think anyone is trying to force anyone out. It’s about trying to create new opportunities given the skills that are around us,” Moskovits said. [WSJ] — Tess Hofmann

From left: 5 Madison Avenue, Ian Schrager (credit: STUDIO SCRIVO), Edition hotel in Miami Beach and ADIA’s Sheikh Khalifa

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority closed on the purchase of the New York Edition Hotel at 5 Madison Avenue, according to property records filed Tuesday.

The 273-room hotel is the third Edition hotel buy for the sovereign wealth fund. It already owns the London Edition and recently paid $230 million for the Miami Beach Edition Hotel.

Marriott International, which created the Edition hotel in partnership with Ian Schrager, acquired the landmarked clock tower for $165 million in 2011. –Kyna Doles

Joseph Moinian and a rendering of 3 Hudson Boulevard (credit: FXFOWLE)

The Moinian Group’s 3 Hudson Boulevard, the proposed 66-story, 1.8 million-square-foot tower, has yet to receive official approval from the city, but is likely just months away from securing a key anchor tenant.

Joseph Moinian has no plans to start construction on the tower without the security of at least a 500,000-square-foot tenant, Avison Young’s Arthur Mirante told the New York Post.

“There’s no intent to build on spec,” Mirante said, adding that he expects to announce an anchor tenant within six months. “We have three seriously interested tenants, two of them large enough to be anchors.” Two of those are financial firms.

While the tower has been planned for some time, with a design by FXFOWLE and a site between 34th and 35th streets in Hudson Yards, the plans are still sketchy, and Moinian still hasn’t decided whether some of the top floors will be set aside as luxury condos.

“We’re telling our anchors, ‘If you don’t want residential in the building, don’t worry — we can convert it to all offices,” Mirante said.

In February, The Real Deal reported that Moinian was planning to pay $200 million for bonuses on the site. The tower is projected to cost $1.6 billion. [NYP] — Tess Hofmann

From left: Houses at 12 Garden Place in Brooklyn Heights that sold for $5.7 million and 62 Rockrose Place in Forest Hills that sold for $1.6 million

A three-story Brooklyn Heights townhouse that sold for $5.7 million was the priciest residential home sale in Brooklyn recorded in March, according to PropertyShark data.

The 3,840-square-foot property at 12 Garden Place was built in the early 1900s. The second and third priciest sales on the list are both Boerum Hill townhouses. One is a new four-story home at 99 Boerum Place which sold for $5 million, while the other is a three-story property at 162 Bergen Street which sold for $4.4 million.

120 Congress Street in Cobble Hill

Next, one of the nine properties at the Townhouses of Cobble Hill development changed hands for $3.946 million. Now that the 3,500-square-foot, four-story building at 120 Congress Street has sold, only one of the townhouses – developed in 2013 by Jason Halpern, Gerald Longo and Congress Street Development – remains on the market.

In fifth place, yet another townhouse – a three-story property at 5 Plaza Street West in Park Slope – went for $3.945 million.

QUEENS SALES

Over in Queens, a detached suburban home in Forest Hills was the borough’s priciest residential sale recorded in March, at $2.9 million, PropertyShark data show. The 2.5-story home at 110-02 68th Drive spans 3,580 square feet.

From left: 110-02 68 Drive in Forest Hills and 26-24 3 Street in Astoria

In the No. 2 spot, a two-story A-frame house at 26-24 3rd Street in Astoria sold for $1.98 million.

The third and fifth spots also went to Forest Hills properties. A suburban home at 109 75th Road sold for $1.9 million and another one at 62 Rockrose Place sold for $1.6 million.

In between those two homes on the price ranking was a three-bedroom, 1,640-square-foot condominium unit at 5-41 47th Road in Long Island City that closed for $1.8 million.

1. Revealed: Inside JDS and PMG’s 111 West 57th Street
2. East Village explosion now being investigated as a homicide
3. Marcus & Millichap to double NYC office space with 260 Madison lease

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]

105 East 24th Street

A 43-unit residential building in Flatiron traded hands for the first time in nearly 50 years for $25 million, according to property records filed with the city today.

Private investor Paul Sohayegh — who could not be reached on Tuesday afternoon and whose LinkedIn profile says he’s “self employed” — bought the six-story building at 105 East 24th Street from Martin Riskin, who has owned it since the late 1960s.

The property is located directly next to Sam Chang’s 13-story hotel project at 111 East 24th Street.

In 2010, CW Capital Asset Management filed a foreclosure suit against Sohayegh for allegedly defaulting on a roughly $29 million mortgage loan at a 12-story office building at 29 West 35th Street, as The Real Deal reported.