The New York Times is reporting today that Stuyvesant Town, Tishman Speyer's financial black hole, lost $4.8 million dollars in revenue last year despite evicting hundreds of legal, rent stabilized tenants and bringing an estimated 1,230 apartments to market rate.Never one to take responsibility for a self-inflicted disaster, Tishman Speyer blames the real estate market for the disinterest in their failed real estate coup, not their lack of residential property management.
"The other day when I said the past few months have been our biggest leasing months so far I meant it," clarifies Tish-Spy spokesman Buddy Perrone of Rubenstein Communications. "We unloaded about six apartments to thirty-five college kids last month. That's not too bad considering that Manhattan is real estate poison right now."
Bingo had been a reliable source of revenue for Metropolitan Life since the early 1950s. There used to be one every night of the week on the Oval or in the Senior Lounge. I definitely feel that the casinos have hurt our bingos. Why, Foxwoods has the bingo every day and night...how can Tishman Speyer be expected to compete with the Pequot Tribal Nation!? I also think the smoking bans may have been the final blow.
Maybe a Lasso Contest or a Saturday Night Luau and Horseshoe Tournament would help...
T-S is still the title holder of the greatest fool on the planet. Hey, let's cut them a break, it's their first time managing a residential property!
Got Tish-Speyer, it pays
Met Life had Snoopy as a mascot and made lots of money.
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/182/
Perhaps T-S needs a mascot. How 'bout Family Guy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN3IG7dg1H4
Lux Living is the very 1st RSS feed I've signed up for. I got SUCH "unanticipated delight in the suffering of another" when I read this a.m. that Tish-Spy is LOSING money.
I've lived here for almost 20 years and desperately miss the signs forbidding sun bathing and picnicing. I miss the days when Stuy Town guards would chase my son and his friends across the oval for violating the rule of stepping on the grass. How will this next generation of children learn discipline and respect? not from their parents! Oh, I forgot! It's clear that children will soon not be welcome. The posted advertisements for the new Oval Spaces show no old people, no middle-aged people and no children!!
That's right Schadenfreude, the only demographic TishSpy is interested in is the 20-30 year olds, suffering from delayed development, whose parents have deep pockets and are SO glad to get the brats out of the house, they'll pay for them to go away. No children wanted because they're not profitable (and require adults to care for them).
Anyone over 30 and under dead is not welcome in the TishSpy Grand Vision because they may object to the dorm atmosphere and actually demand some adult behavior on the part of their fellow tenants and expect the landlord to enforce quality of life rules. That would be more than TishSpy, with its severely limited managerial skills when it comes to running residential property, could deal with.
Tish-Spy sure gives double messages. Plans to open Oval Sperm Bank to assist in in-vitro fertilization for market-rate tenants as a compensation for the loss of pressurized walls gives one message. The lack of children in their "beautiful young people" ads certainly says the opposite. Perhaps the idea is to get them with child in Stuy Town, then move them to PCV at higher rents.
This website is a brilliant satire on corporate greed and folly. When folks start reminiscing about the authoritarian - almost fascist and historically racist policies that existed before Tish-Spy took over, I think we're all in trouble.
Nevertheless we need to work out ways that thousands of people can live together taking into consideration that we are of different generations, income and life styles.
I've just discovered this Blog (thanks to Sunday's NY Times) and am delighted! My husband and I and our two children were happy residents of "the old Stuytown" in the few years just before it became remade as a money-making monster. We had to leave because we outgrew our one-bedroom apartment (all they would offer us when we moved in, in 1998, despite the fact we'd applied for a 2-bedroom--so really we were on the cusp of the new management the whole time). We couldn't afford a two-bedroom at the new rates--even if we had been able to afford it we couldn't take the risk of a one-year lease (only thing being offered) without rent stabilization. Good thing we didn't, given what rents are now. But we are angry and bitter to this day--it would have been a wonderful place to continue raising our family, and it is disgusting to see what it's turned into. I'm bookmarking your blog--keep up the good work!
As Gordon Gekko said in Wall Street, “The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good.” It’s too bad that GEICO got the gecko as its mascot; it would be a perfect campaign for Tish-Spy. Just picture the Tish-Spy blimp cruising over Stuy Town sporting the words, Greed is good.
I'm not sure that this can be gleaned from the Times article, but it looks as if, had T-S left well-enough alone, e.g., not going after rent stabilized tenants, merely collecting the stabilized rents and renting vacant apartments at market rates as they occurred, there would have been a smaller loss, if any.
I think the most interesting thing is that they're pulling just over $100 million net revenue. In order to pay off the creditors and break even in 6 - 8 years (as they promised them), they need to be pulling like $600 million per year. Anyone see a problem ? ROTFLMFAO !
I think they should cut and run. Sell it to the Tenants Association. They would have it turning a profit in no time and have it managed it the way a residential property should be managed. I hope that Tishman Speyer drowns in red ink!
Ditto Beulah!
In response to pomous ass, I agree that it's sad how little NYers expect in terms of affordable places to live. It's true that the old StuyTown was run like a friendly fascist state and that it has a horrible history of racism (of course, it was Stuy Town tenants themselves who protested the racist policies of the late 1940s.) Still, StuyTown used to be one of the only places affordable to a wide range of New Yorkers -- folks working for non-profits (like me), film makers, court offices, nurses, FBI agents, musicians -- where are all these folks supposed to live now??
Their net revenue should have been 10 million higher!
According to the New York Times article, T-S lost millions in dollars of revenue due to "legal fees". 560 apartments is 5% of complex which in-line with of the percentage of apartments that were being converted per year since the market rate conversion practice started in year 2000. Why are there higher legal fees but the same amount of apartments being deregulated in 2007? The answer is becuase T-S is lying to investors in order to screen the fact they are paying themselves a management fee and doing a horrible job managing the property.
Remember when the vacancy rate was 10%, Buddy Perrone blamed the "lengthy renovation process".
This management fee arrangement is a clear-cut conflict of interest and investors should be suing.
I wonder if we'll have heat this winter?