While perusing Crain's today, a Stuy-Spy noticed an "NYC Job-Loss Meter" which credits Tishman Speyer's red brick albatross for 115 newly unemployed people. No word if a severance package was offered before the cloven hooves kicked them to the curb in a cloud of sulfuric smoke.

Via CNBC.com

Via US REO Properties

Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper village complexes are in trouble.

One hedge fund entity has taken over a major share of their debts and is now trying to take over control. This step will create snarls in an already complex financial and political set up involving the biggest apartment units in Manhattan. 25,000 tenants are apprehensive about their fate in the future.
Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty purchased the two - Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village for a hefty sum of $5.4 billion. But when the owners started to lag behind on their mortgage payments they decided to hand over the estates to the lenders.

A hedge fund of New Jersey, Appaloosa Management is headed by David Tepper. Papers have been filed last Tuesday (23rd February) by it in the USA District Court throwing a challenge to the firm that oversees the two spacious complexes overlooking East River. The suit was filed representing the lenders. It was stated that the firm had "irrationally and imprudently" been following a path that would cause hundreds of millions of loss for the debt holders.

Appaloosa intervened objecting to a decision taken by the firm - CW Capital Management to foreclose on the owners of the two estates. The argument was that a foreclosure would involve a cost of nearly $200 million for transferring of taxes. Appaloosa said that if CW Capital had pushed the borrowers into bankruptcy the need for paying those taxes would not have arisen.

Appaloosa has wanted the permission of the court to intervene in this issue. It has also stated that CW Capital being both the servicer of the mortgage and a major debt holder has "irreconcilable conflicts of interest."

Continue reading "Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village Complexes are in Foreclosure Trouble" at USREOPoperties.com

Via GlobeSt.com

By now the tale of the failed Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village deal is well known. Bought for a record $5.4 billion in 2006 by a JV of Tishman Speyer and BlackRock Realty, the 110-building, 11,200-plus-unit residential property is one of Manhattan's premier residential complexes.

Yet the economy and legal challenges threw a kink into the buyers' plan to bring the complex's units from stabilized to market rates. As a result, the property's cash flow remained too low to cover debt-service obligations. By year-end 2009, the Tishman-BlackRock JV had not only gone through its $400-million debt-service reserve but also a nearly $200-million general reserve.

What was to be the final blow came when the New York State appeals court ruled that the JV and its predecessors had improperly deregulated and raised rents on thousands of units at the complex. Not only was the further conversion of more units halted, but the court also found that the tenants were due some $215 million in rent rebates.

Now valued at some $1.8 billion--a 67% decline from its price at the peak of the market--the property was severely underwater on its mortgage. In January, the Tishman-BlackRock JV said it would be handing the keys to the complex back to the lenders after being unable to negotiate a restructuring of its debt that would maintain its ownership. The ownership stake was also why Tishman bowed out of managing the property; special servicer CWCapital has since hired local firm Rose Associates.

Calls made to CWCapital were not returned. BlackRock deferred comments to Tishman, which would not comment beyond its Jan. 25 joint statement announcing its intention to transfer control of the complex to its creditors.

Continue reading "The First of the Worst" @ GlobeSt.com

Via CityHallNews.com

Members of the Assembly are moving quickly to kill a proposal by State Sen. Pedro Espada that would freeze rents in New York City for as many as 750,000 tenants.

According to tenant activists, the Espada bill would amount to a get-out-ofjail-free card for landlords.

The bill would allow landlords who illegally deregulated thousands of apartments while receiving special tax breaks to keep those units at market rate by simply paying back the benefits. A landmark court ruling last year found that the owners of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village had improperly collected what are known as J-51 tax breaks while converting thousands of apartments to market rate. In the months since the ruling, tenants at buildings from Harlem to TriBeCa have filed suits to claw back millions in rent increases.

Espada's bill would nullify those suits, saving landlords millions.

Continue reading "Landlords Look To Build Support For 'Rent Freeze' Bill In Wake Of Stuy-Town Ruling" @ CityHallNews.com

Just wait until our friends at NY Mag's Daily Intel catch wind of this. 33 year old Zachari Gaston was caught on a Stuy Town roof twice last week, the first time taking a dump, and the second time going back to retrieve his 27 bags of pot he left behind. So yes, people do defecate in the stairwells, and on the roofs, and...sigh...we promise we'll lighten up on the feces-related posts next week. 

The weather is slightly warmer. Perfect day for a walk. Not in Stuyvesant Town! As the snow melts in Stuyvesant Town it's revealing the remnants of irresponsible dog owners in the form of poodle bombs throughout the complex. An angry tenant just wrote us:

"I counted no less than 4 piles of dog shit on the Ave A loop between 14th an 3 Oval around noon today. I guess people feel the snow washes it away and nobody will notice. This place did nothing but make me angry for 3 years, now it's making me nauseous."



And if the mini-loafs aren't bad enough, residents are having to deal with unleashed dogs attacking their pets. A Stuy Spy snapped a photo today of this flier outside of Associated Market which reads in part:

"There is a brown and white bulldog short & very heavy that attacked my small dog. This dog was loose with it's irresponsible owners when I came outside 655 E14th Stuy Town at Playground 5. The dog chased my dog back up the stairs and grabbed it by the back, had my dog dangling in mid air screaming with pain and wouldn't release my dog. These people are completely irrisponsible."

The writer goes on to say the dog owners had to pry the dog out of their dog's mouth and left without saying anything nor offering an appology.

Non-residents are not allowed to walk their dogs in Stuyvesant Town and Stuy Town dog owners are suppossed to keep their dogs leashed at all times. Perhaps it's time security starts enforcing the dog rules around Stuyvesant Town before another dog is attacked, or worse, a small child.

When Stuyvesant Town residents aren't slipping on icy walkways, they are slipping on large piles of brown left behind by inconsiderate dog owners. A Stuy Spy took this photo today of a garbage can surrounded by dog feces.

When the Tishman Speyer regime took over the property, they did away with the "no dogs" policy that had been in effect since the '40s. Unfortunately they did little to nothing to prevent the place from drowning in dog urine and mini-loafs ala Gramercy Park. This means anyone with a dog, both residents and non-residents, can use the property as a pooch potty.

While some dog owners are responsible and pick up after their dogs, there are plenty of others who let their dogs yo-yo into what's left of the landscaping - on their illegal retractable leashes - to drop a bomb. Hopefully the new management will do something about this mess.

While some parts of Stuyvesant Town are frequently graced by snow plows - they still need to show that model apartment - others are still a mess. A Stuy Spy snapped these photos around 6PM near 20th Street and First Avenue and of the 18th Street Loop. The Stuy Spy writes:

"Nothing has been plowed - all these photos were taken near 20th Street and 1st Ave. In the last photo, you can see a view looking South to the north side of the 18th Street loop. The hill leading to it was covered in packed snow as well. My husband helped an elderly woman down it - horrible conditions!!!"

Other residents have said their buildings have been plowed but the salt is randomly dispersed, with just a handful tossed every 20 feet or so. "The stairs near the Community Center on the First Avenue Loop are an icy mess. They were shoveled this afternoon but the black ice is bad. Only one stair has rock salt on it."

After last week's feces-packed snowball fights, Stuy Town's management is keeping their staff on a short leash. How short you ask? Short enough they aren't allowed to use their plows!  A Stuy Spy sent us these photos of an abandoned snow plow on the Avenue C Loop while another, larger plow remains abandoned near 4 Stuyvesant Oval. Break a hip leg!