Landlords score in Manhattan House and Sheffield57 cases

In a major victory for residential landlords, a New York State appeals court late last month overturned two controversial rulings that prevented the eviction of market-rate tenants at Manhattan House and Sheffield57, two of the biggest condominium conversions in the city’s history.

In March 2007, Housing Court Judge David Cohen blocked Sheffield57 sponsor Kent Swig from evicting 23 market-rate tenants and later that year hindered Manhattan House's sponsors, O’Connor Capital Partners, from evicting 29 tenants.

In his decisions, Cohen said that the intent of New York State’s 1982 Martin Act was to protect all tenants from losing their homes in case of condo or co-operative conversions.

However, the three-judge panel argued in the November decision that since the leases had expired prior to the state Attorney General accepting the “red herring” plan, which outlines the specifics of the conversion, the Martin Act does not protect them.

“Where the tenant holds over after the expiration of the lease term, the landlord is not required to allege or prove any basis for eviction other than the expiration of the lease,” the court wrote in the Manhattan House case.

In 2005, a partnership led by Swig Equities acquired the Sheffield, which later changed to Sheffield57, at 322 West 57th Street, then an 845-unit rental building, for $418 million. That same year, O’Connor Capital Partners teamed up with developer Richard Kalikow to buy the 583-unit Manhattan House, at 200 East 66th Street, for $623 million, a U.S. record price for a single residential building. In late 2007, O’Connor bought out Kalikow after a lengthy court battle.

In each case, the sponsors sought the eviction of all market-rate tenants so they could convert the non-regulated rental apartments into condo units. The Manhattan House conversion is valued at $1.1 billion, making it one of the most expensive condominium conversions in U.S. history.

Lawyers for the tenants still maintain that market-rate tenants should be protected under the Martin Act.

“I think Judge Cohen’s decision -- the decision that they reversed -- was consistent with the legislative intent and consistent with good case law,” said attorney Kevin McConnell, who represents Manhattan House, as well as tenants at Sheffield57.

“I virulently believe these tenants deserve protection from eviction," he said.

At the time of the March 2007 Sheffield ruling, more than 7,000 rental apartments at 60 buildings were being converted in the city. Many of those conversions have slowed down or stopped, as the credit markets have made it difficult for apartment buyers to get financing.

McConnell said tenants at Manhattan House are deciding whether to appeal. He added that he could not comment on behalf of his Sheffield57 clients, because he had not discussed the case with them at press time.

Manhattan House and Sheffield57 officials were not immediately available for comment.

December 03, 2008, David Jones, The Real Deal

Nordbank, Germany Agree on Terms of Bailout; May Seek Up to $37 Billion, Sell Assets

German state-owned bank HSH Nordbank AG said it may seek as much as 30 billion euros ($37.6 billion) from the German Financial Markets Stabilization fund.

The stabilization fund, known as SoFFin, and HSH Nordbank agreed on the terms today, HSH said today in an e-mailed statement. The Hamburg-based bank also may sell some assets.

Banks worldwide were forced to seek help from shareholders and governments after the September bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. froze credit markets. German state-owned bank WestLB AG of Dusseldorf has also said it would ask for debt guarantees and consider requesting capital from the state. Commerzbank said Nov. 3 it will get 8.2 billion euros of capital from the state, making it Germany's first publicly traded lender to get cash from the rescue fund.

``This decision is a clear signal: it strengthens our bank and creates sufficient flexibility for the further development of our business model,'' HSH Chief Executive Officer Dirk Jens Nonnenmacher said in the statement. ``We are working on a set of concrete measures, with which we will advance the future strategy of HSH Nordbank.''

The bank is also considering selling assets and expects that these measures will help increase the company's capital to at least 8 percent, according to the statement. ``Shareholders and management will discuss the exact arrangements over the coming weeks,'' HSH said.

By Nadja Brandt, Nov. 21, 2008, Bloomberg

A Good Example as a Neighbor?

For several years, tenants at Manhattan House, the huge landmark white brick apartment complex at 200 East 66th Street, have complained bitterly about noisy construction, dust, debris and environmental hazards as many of the 581 apartments in five connected towers were renovated and converted to condominiums.

In the last few weeks, even as dozens of new owners closed on apartments, tenants have been considering whether to go to court again about damage they say was deliberately done by sponsors to drive tenants out.

But perhaps there is room in this tough Manhattan street brawl for a kinder, gentler approach. Property records filed last week show that in early November, Jeffrey Hollender, a businessman who travels the country lecturing business leaders on corporate responsibility and cooperation, and his wife, Sheila Hollender, paid $2.2 million for a 12th-floor two-bedroom apartment at Manhattan House.

Mr. Hollender, a native New Yorker, moved to Vermont where he developed a business, Seventh Generation, a company that describes itself as selling “authentic, safe, and environmentally responsible products for a healthy home.” The company, of which he is the president and “chief inspired protagonist,” did about $100 million in sales last year.

What matters most in business, Mr. Hollender says, is not growth, quarterly profits and shareholder value, but good corporate citizenship.

“We must ensure that the practice of corporate responsibility is spread to every sector of society,” Mr. Hollender said in a statement a few weeks ago. “Now is not the time to retreat in fear, but forge ahead to create a better and brighter world for all.”

Rafael Urquia II, a lawyer who has led a Manhattan House tenant group through several bumpy years, said of his neighbor-to-be, “There’s some irony in that.”

Mr. Hollender had speaking engagements on the West Coast last week and did not respond to several requests for comment.

Adam Leitman Bailey, a lawyer for the tenants’ group, would not comment on the conflict.

Dolly Lenz, the broker at Prudential Douglas Elliman who heads the sales effort at Manhattan House, said that the developers had been acting responsibly in carrying out the conversion.

She said she didn’t think the complaints were “anything at all unusual.” “It is the tenant-owner thing that always happens in a conversion,” she said.

By Josh Barbanel, Big Deal, New York Times
November 23, 2008

HSH Nordbank Chief Berger Resigns, CFO Takes Over

HSH Nordbank AG, the only German state bank partially owned by private investors, said Chief Executive Officer Hans Berger resigned, a week after the lender asked for government help.

The Hamburg-based bank accepted the 58 year-old CEO's offer to step down and will ask Chief Financial Officer Dirk Jens Nonnenmacher, 45, to take charge until further notice, HSH Nordbank said today in an e-mailed statement.

``The management board failed to foresee the degree of intensity and duration of the crisis and the risks for the bank's earnings that have come to light,'' Berger said in the statement. HSH Nordbank will post a ``negative result'' this year and ``I take responsibility for this,'' he added.

HSH Nordbank announced Nov. 3 that it will seek 30 billion euros ($38.6 billion) in debt guarantees from the government amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Banks from UBS AG in Zurich to New York-based Citigroup Inc. are being forced to seek government rescues after the September bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. froze credit markets.

The bank last week reported a nine-month loss of almost 360 million euros after writedowns of 720 million euros. The lender said at the time that it may seek a capital injection from the government, as part of the country's 500 billion-euro financial industry rescue package.

Berger became HSH Nordbank's head in January 2007, having previously worked as deputy CEO. Nonnenmacher assumed the position of CFO in October 2007.

Georg Funke resigned Oct. 7 as CEO of Hypo Real Estate Holding AG after the German commercial property lender needed a 50 billion-euro bailout.
By Jann Bettinga, Nov. 10, 2008, Bloomberg

Elliman partner buys at Manhattan House with only 10% down payment

Elliman retail partner buys at Manhattan House
By David Jones, The Real Deal, November 7, 2008

Joseph Aquino, executive vice president of retail leasing and sales at Prudential Douglas Elliman, has closed on a $1.48 million apartment at Manhattan House, the controversial Upper East Side condominium that his firm is marketing, according to sources and government records.

The deal makes Aquino one of the first buyers at the 200 East 66th Street tower, which just began closing apartment sales last month following a year-long conversion process.

“He bought when the offering was first presented,” said Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of the retail leasing and sales division at Elliman and Aquino's long-time business partner. “He’s very happy. It’s a wonderful building.” Aquino was not immediately available for comment.

The move comes at a time when several major commercial banks, including Citibank, have decided not to underwrite mortgage loans at Manhattan House or have asked buyers for down payments of up to 50 percent. JPMorgan Chase officials said they were only following guidelines set by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which call for banks to lend in new condo conversions only when more than half of available units are sold.

As of this week, more than 120 apartments in the 583-unit building are under contract, and 15 deals have closed. About six apartments were sold for cash, with the remaining were financed with down payments of at least 25 percent, according to sources and city records. The building has another 190 rent-stabilized and 35 market-rate rental tenants.

Manhattan House officials have been under pressure to boost sales at the building. The sponsor, O’Connor Capital Partners, lost a December 2007 court battle to evict existing 31 market-rate tenants, which left him with fewer available units to sell. The building's Germany-based lender, HSH Nordbank was forced to assume the risk on the Manhattan House loan after a deal to syndicate it fell apart.

Aquino and his wife Suzanne closed on their apartment, unit A1107, late last month. The 1,113-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment was originally listed at $1.48 million and was taken off the market nine months ago after the Aquinos signed a contract, according to Streeteasy.com and records filed with the city Department of Finance.

City records show that JPMorgan underwrote one mortgage for $1.1 million and a second mortgage for $234,142 for the Aquino unit, leaving a down payment balance of about 10 percent.

Prudential Vice Chairman Dolly Lenz, who leads the Elliman brokerage team selling units in Manhattan House, confirmed that Aquino bought a unit at Manhattan House, but declined to offer any other details about his purchase or the overall pace of sales at the building.

“We can confirm that Mr. Aquino has bought in Manhattan House and the relationship with our buyers prohibits us from providing purchase details with the media.”

One high-profile buyer, according to published reports, is Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, who has signed a contract to buy a three-bedroom apartment at Manhattan House. Retired Miami Dolphins legend Dan Marino previously shopped around for apartments at Manhattan House. CNBC superstar Maria Bartiromo is a former Manhattan House resident, but sources say she moved out after the conversion process began in 2007.

Manhattan House faces lending woes

Manhattan House faces lending woes
David Jones, The Real Deal, October, 31, 2008

The record $1.1 billion Manhattan House conversion on the Upper East Side has run into resistance from several major commercial banks that have either refused to finance condo deals there or demanded exorbitant down payments from contracted buyers.

Sources familiar with the building said at least a dozen condo buyers have either been turned down for loans, or asked to provide 30 to 50 percent cash deposits, which in some cases forced them to postpone the scheduled closing of their units.

As a result, some buyers fear they will have to purchase their apartments entirely in cash or risk walking away from the building because the condo agreements did not include a mortgage contingency clause.

"They got caught in the perfect storm on the precipice of this [credit market] disaster," said a source.

Manhattan House is one of the city's largest and most high-profile condo conversions. But, it is not the only condo building in New York facing problems. Buyers have begun to bail out of condos like 25 Broad and 20 Pine Street in the Financial District, while lenders have shied away from some Battery Park City buildings because they sit on long-term ground leases.

According to sources and records filed with the city Department of Finance, at least eight of the more than 120 apartments sold at Manhattan House have closed since the condo plan was approved by state regulators. Of those eight, four sales were cash transactions, three were loans approved by Wells Fargo and one was a loan approved JPMorgan Chase.

Neal Bader, area manager at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, confirmed that the bank has pre-approved the building and is actively working with buyers to finance apartment deals.

"There is nothing inherent about Manhattan House or the financial efficacy of that building that would have any impact on getting lower loan to value," said Bader.

However, a Citibank spokesman confirmed that the bank will not write loans to finance Manhattan House buyers, saying the building did not meet Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac guidelines, which are used to assess risk levels in newly constructed or converted condos. "We might look at that building in the future," the spokesman said.

JPMorgan Chase spokesman Mike Fusco, while declining to comment on Manhattan House specifically, said Fannie and Freddie "are asking us to make loans only if 51 percent of the units are sold at presale. He added, however, that the bank is actively pursuing new loans to fill the void left by other conservative or collapsed banks, and during the second-quarter had the biggest year-over-year market share gain among the nation's top lenders.

The decisions come at a critical time for Manhattan House owner O'Connor Capital Partners, which recently sold the building's retail space for $86 million and used part of the proceeds to pay down its loan balance from German-lender HSH Nordbank.

In October 2007, the New York-based developer borrowed $750 million from HSH Nordbank to finance the conversion of Manhattan House, which was acquired for a record $623 million in 2005.

HSH Nordbank initially syndicated the loan among a group of banks, giving each a piece of the loan and reducing the risk for all of the lenders. The banks involved in the deal included Emigrant Savings, Bank of America, Bank of New York, HSBC, ING, M&T and Wells Fargo.

However, a September report in Commercial Mortgage Alert confirmed that the partner banks forced HSH to take the loan back, amid concerns about the conversion. The report said HSH would cut most of its New York staff and curtail lending in the U.S., where it had about $6 billion in mortgages that it was unable to syndicate.

HSH Nordbank and Manhattan House officials declined comment.

Legal and financial experts said the tight lending environment not only reflects increased concern about financing highly-leveraged projects, but also highlights the inability to securitize super jumbo loans in the multi-million dollar range. Loans of this size are often considered "portfolio loans" that would be carried on the banks' own books and not sold off in the secondary market."

Most lenders have completely changed their loan-to-value guidelines," said Debra Schultz, director and senior mortgage consultant at Manhattan Mortgage Co., the largest residential mortgage broker in New York. "If you want to borrow 90 percent on a $3 million to $4 million property, they want no part of it."

Schultz said that many of her wealthy clients cannot get financing from commercial banks, forcing her to use private lenders, which include hedge funds and the private banking departments of many investment banks.

Manhattan House, with a total of 583 total units, has a large number of apartments that have not been sold, or even been renovated yet, which means the developer will need to spend additional funds on construction and find a way to generate revenue in a weak real estate market.

Katherine Fleming, a Manhattan House tenant since 1991, just closed a deal to buy her apartment for $1.55 million in cash and remains confident in the building's performance. "The building has a future or I wouldn't have put my money down," she said.

Manhattan House has about 190 rent-stabilized tenants and 35 market-rate tenants. City records show that the eight recorded sales range from about $837,343 to $2.72 million.

Adam Leitman Bailey, attorney for the Manhattan House Tenants Association and an advisor to some of the buyers, declined comment.

Critics of the building note that O'Connor and former partner Richard Kalikow bought Manhattan House at the height of the real estate boom for a record $623 million, which averages more than $1 million per apartment. So even if O'Connor were to consider renting out units, he would never be able to generate enough income to pay his "monthly nut," sources said.

"He paid way too much to justify it as a rental," said David Berger, managing principal at Rosewood Realty Group. "In a good market the numbers wouldn't underwrite as a rental."

As noted earlier, O'Connor is not the only new condo facing difficulties.

At 20 Pine Street in the Financial District, multiple buyers have filed suit to get their deposits back, citing extensive delays, and more than 50 units have been placed in the rental market, according to StreetEasy.

And, developer Kent Swig is facing lawsuits from unpaid contractors at 25 Broad Street and at the Sheffield at 322 West 57th Street, He recently shut down his entire 25 Broad sales office and some buyers have said they will walk from their deposits.

"The very aggressive people who banked on these projects selling out at a very large sellout number are going to be faced with challenges," said one leading condo broker, who asked not to be identified.

"When anybody in Manhattan House wants to sell their [unit] they're going to be competing with the sponsor."

Herrick Feinstein attorney Doug Heller said one of his clients, a developer with multiple condo projects, has been unable to get financing for many of his buyers. Heller worries that new government regulations will further limit the ability of condo buyers to qualify for financing.

"What I'm hearing from my clients is that this might even be the tip of the iceberg," he said.

O'Connor's Blog

Quinn & Co. Public Relations, the PR firm for O’Connor Capital Partners has just launched a new Manhattan House blog!

Sadly, their blog does NOT allow vistors to post comments.

Feel free to post comments about O'Connor's blog here.

http://manhattanhouse.wordpress.com/

Manhattan House retail sells for less than asking price

Manhattan House retail sells for $14M less than asking
October, 08, 2008, The Real Deal

O'Connor Capital Partners sold the retail portion of the landmark Manhattan House to Madison Capital for $86 million, $14 million less than the asking price.

The 102,842 square feet of retail, parking and office condominiums includes seven street-level stores and four office spaces. O'Connor Capital has already attracted some new tenants to the building, at 200 East 66th Street, including Staples and Aldo.

Manhattan House is comprised of five 22-story buildings, and was originally designed as a rental building in 1952 by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.

A team led by Dolly Lenz of Prudential Douglas Elliman is marketing the 583 residential condos in the mixed-use complex. The attorney general's office approved the conversion of the building from rentals to condos in August.

NY Attorney General certifies Manhattan House conversion plan

NY Attorney General certifies Manhattan House conversion plan
August, 27, 2008

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office has declared effective the plan to convert Manhattan House into condominiums, three years after the building sold for $623 million, according to officials from the tenants' association and developer.

Tenants said they were notified on Aug. 26 that Cuomo's office had accepted the plan earlier in the month, and that the first closings were scheduled to begin sometime between late September to early October.

O'Connor Capital Partners previously met a deadline set by HSH Nordbank to sell at least 15 percent of the available apartments by June 1, or face delays in closing the apartments. Sources said the last official update in June showed that about 110 apartments had been sold.

Streeteasy.com reports the building has 50 units on sale at an average price of $1,624 per square foot, ranging from $722,000 to $6 million.

The declaration represents a significant victory for developer Jeremiah O'Connor, who engineered the $1.1 billion conversion plan that would make Manhattan House one the biggest condo conversions in U.S. history.

Manhattan House officials were not immediately available for comment. Tenant association officials said they were waiting to get additional written confirmation on the plan before commenting.

O'Connor survived a brutal legal fight against N. Richard Kalikow, who partnered with him on the 2006 acquisition from New York Life Insurance Co. He also endured a lengthy set of legal challenges by the Manhattan House Tenants Organization, which fought against the conversion on several fronts, including over whether market rate tenants could be evicted.

O'Connor hired a team led by Prudential Douglas Elliman superbroker Dolly Lenz to market the 583-unit property at 200 East 66th Street, taking out a $750 million loan from HS Nordbank in 2007 to help finance the conversion. Nordbank, like a number of commercial foreign banks, has since shut down much of its major commercial lending in New York.

Author: David Jones, The Real Deal

Whose Block Is It Anyway?

Tenants vs. landlords, buyers vs. residents, developers vs. community boards: The six nastiest real-estate battles in town, and who’s likely to come out ahead.

By S.Jhoanna Robledo, New York Magazine
Published Jul 20, 2008

201 WEST 92ND ST./200 WEST 93RD ST.

The Battle
Developer Kent Swig bought these tenement-style rentals full of stabilized tenants in 2005, planning to add nine stories atop the six already there. The agitated residents recruited politicians and local activists, and though prep work did begin, construction was stopped by the Department of Buildings after residents worried loudly about all that was going on above their heads.

Who’s Winning?
The little guys—for now. Swig never added the extra floors, and he sold the buildings three weeks ago for $61 million, reportedly at a loss, to an investment group. (A spokesperson for Swig Equities says, “We are a private company and do not disclose our profits.”) “We won round one,” says a concerned resident. “Swig’s a major player, and he couldn’t make a go of it—how will this guy?”

THE APTHORP

The Battle
Last year, diamond mogul Lev Leviev paid $426 million for 50 percent of this West Side landmark. (Mann Realty owns the rest.) Condo conversion was approved soon after, at prices—$3,000 a square foot?!—that the tenants found staggering. Particularly the ones who’d been dealing with bad plumbing and indifferent maintenance for decades.

Who’s Winning?
The landlord, probably. Even at those steep prices, and even though it’s not on the park, “it’s a fabulous building. People will want it,” says Stribling’s Kirk Henckels. As for the oldsters, “they’re protected by rent regulation,” says Jon Herbitter, president of Mann. “We haven’t tried to get rid of them if they’re legitimate. They’re welcome to buy”—at the going rates—“and they’re welcome to stay.”

STUYVESANT TOWN/PETER COOPER VILLAGE

The Battle
More anxiety than actual fighting, ever since the complexes went market-rate and were sold to Tishman Speyer in 2006. Though Tishman insists that it has no plans (and no legal way) to toss out the old-timers, there’s a certain amount of fear among them. There’s also a culture clash between the very stable regulated tenants and the transient newbies, many of them NYU kids.

Who’s Winning?
The apartments are renting well (the complex had its “busiest leasing months ever over the course of the spring and into this summer,” says a spokesperson for Tishman Speyer), and a landscaping project, free yoga classes, a new fitness center, and a screening room will benefit tenants old and new. But many older residents feel deeply alienated by the slickness appearing around them.

MANHATTAN HOUSE

The Battle
Bought in 2005 by Richard Kalikow and Jeremiah O’Connor, the original East Side white-brick is going condo, and tenants contended that their offers to buy were rebuffed. (They had wanted major price breaks.) The current gripes center on disruptions from renovations. “They’re making life so unbearable!” says writer-producer Pat Lynch. “I work in my apartment, and I can’t get anything done.”

Who’s Winning?
A legal salvo on the part of the tenants—“They made some mistakes on the offering plan,” says tenants-association head Rafael Urquia—foundered in the lower courts, but they’re considering an appeal. Meanwhile, according to StreetEasy.com, 85 of the 500 or so apartments have found buyers. O’Connor and Kalikow have also bickered, and Kalikow’s no longer involved.

COLUMBUS VILLAGE/PARK WEST VILLAGE

The Battle
The complex from 97th Street to 100th Street on Columbus Avenue is being expanded, and the Chetrit Group and Stellar Management wantto lure big retailers. (T.J. Maxx and Whole Foods are signed, says The Real Deal.) “The public has been excluded from the planning process, which is contrary to the law,” says Paul Bunten, whose group is taking the Department of Buildings and the owners to court.

Who’s Winning?
Hard to call. “We intend to take this show on the road to work with other neighborhoods,” says Bunten. But Chetrit has been making nice: Since the collapse, it’s held monthly meetings to address community issues. “It’s difficult anytime you’re building a big project in New York,” says Chetrit’s Jeff Gdanski, “but we’re confident everyone will be happy once we’re finished.”

ST. VINCENT CATHOLIC MEDICAL CENTERS

The Battle
The hospital’s plan to raze several low-scale buildings and build upward has incurred the wrath of Greenwich Village’s legendarily cranky NIMBYs. They’re hoping the Landmarks Preservation Commission won’t okay the project, which falls in a historic neighborhood. Complicating things, the hospital is in a financial crunch, and nobody wants to see cuts in patient care.

Who’s Winning?
The proposal has been revised a few times—now only five buildings have to be razed as opposed to the original nine, and the developer, Rudin Management, has shrewdly agreed to add a badly needed public school. “It feels like we’ve really listened to the community,” says COO John Gilbert. Said community remains suspicious, but some version of the project is clearly going to happen.

Manhattan House goes retail

Crain's New York Business
by Kira Bindrim
March 11, 2008

The Manhattan House is hoping to charge $100 million, but not for a condominium.

Jeremiah O’Connor, owner of O’Connor Capital Partners and the swanky Manhattan House, is pursuing a $100 million sale of the building’s retail, office and park spaces, according to The Real Deal.

Mr. O’Connor has hired Eastdil Secured to find a buyer for the space, on 200 East 66th Street, which includes 25,000 square feet of retail, 7,350 square feet of office spate and a 225-car garage.

High-end condominiums may draw high-end retailers. The area already houses luxury shops like Club Monaco, and the conversion could draw other stores looking to cash in on residents’ deep pockets. According to the Real Deal, both Brooks Brothers and White House Black Market (which sells only black and white clothing and accessories) are potential tenants. Asking rents for the space, between Second and Third Aves., range between $200 and $350 per square foot.

That’s a far cry from the building’s humble origins. Similar to the Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town complexes, Manhattan House was commissioned by New York Life Insurance Co. as an affordable-housing building for middle-class New Yorkers. Close to 250 of the building’s 583 apartments remain rent-stabilized

But unlike other white-brick buildings, Manhattan House will be around for awhile: The city declared the rags-to-riches site a landmark last year.

With the public eye trained on celebrities’ real estate moves, Mr. O’Connor has already marketed the Manhattan House as the former home of Grace Kelly. But between the litigation-filled condo conversion, and a credit crunch that has fewer people looking to shell out $14 million for an apartment, snagging high-end retailers might be his latest effort to meet deadlines: the developer must sell 15% of its apartments by June 1 in order to receive full financing for the conversion.

Manhattan House looks to cash in on selling retail space

The Real Deal
Author: David Jones
March 11, 2008

The owner of the Manhattan House is pursuing a $100 million sale of the building's retail, office and parking space, a move that observers say could bring several major apparel retailers to the Upper East Side apartment complex, including Brooks Brothers Inc.

Jeremiah O'Connor, owner of O'Connor Capital Partners, has hired Eastdil Secured to find a buyer for the space, which includes 25,000 square feet of retail, 7,350 square feet of office space as well as a 225-car garage. O'Connor is converting the 200 East 66th Street complex into condominiums.

Manhattan House, which takes up an entire block from Second to Third Avenues, already includes a mix of service-oriented stores and apparel chains, including Club Monaco and a new entry from Canadian athletic-wear maker Lululemon Athletica.

"We've had a number of national tenants that have come to look at this space," said Gary Trock, senior vice president of the retail group at CB Richard Ellis, which is marketing the Manhattan House space.

Along with Brooks Brothers, another potential tenant is White House Black Market, which sells clothing and accessories only in shades of black and white.

Trock declined to comment on any specific tenants, but said that Manhattan House has some vacant retail spaces and other leases that are coming up for renewal. He said some retailers are being moved around within the Manhattan House complex to open up potential space for others.

Asking rents range from $200 a square foot on Second Avenue to $350 a square foot on Third Avenue.

Brokers said the value of the Manhattan House properties would depend on when the existing leases roll over and what type of retailers a new owner could bring into the complex.

"There are a lot of tenants in the apparel business that do not have a store up here yet that need to be there," said Ariel Schuster, senior vice president at Robert K. Futterman & Associates.

In 2007, Schuster negotiated a 20-year lease to put the 14,000 square foot flagship store for women's retailer Coldwater Creek at 1172 Third Avenue, which is two blocks north of Manhattan House.

Analysts say that a number of European investors have been trolling the area looking for retail deals, including more than one Spanish firm.

Eastdil representatives would not comment beyond confirming that the properties were up for sale. O'Connor Capital Partners also declined comment.

Club Monaco representatives declined to comment, and Lululemon Athletica officials were not immediately available for comment.

Brooks Brothers has an Upper West Side location at 1934 Broadway. A Brooks Brothers spokesperson said the retailer was always looking for new locations in Manhattan, but did not have any comment on Manhattan House.
Representatives from White House Black Market, which operates a store at 136 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron district, were not immediately available for comment.

Analysts said the sale of the Manhattan House's commercial space has not been affected by any problems related to the building's condo conversion, detailed in this month's issue of The Real Deal. O'Connor, while settling a prolonged legal battle with former development partner Richard Kalikow, has faced off against a group of tenants opposed to the conversion. The teants claim that they have been harassed into abandoning their apartments.

O'Connor in February posted a new update on condominium sales in the building's lobby, showing that 39 of the building's 583 units had been sold, with only four of them going to residents. The Manhattan House faces a June 1 deadline to sell 15 percent of its apartments, under the terms of its financing from Nordbank, which wants to see progress before it puts more money into the conversion.

Kips Bay Goes White-Brick

The New York Times
March 9, 2008

By Josh Barbanel

You can dress it up in beaver rugs and silk taffeta, crown moldings and chandeliers, but can you sell it?

Manhattan House, the huge $1 billion condominium conversion project at East 66th Street and Second Avenue, faces a state deadline of June 30.

By then, the developers have to obtain signed contracts for 87 of the original 583 apartments (some have since been combined) or the plan will be considered abandoned. And to push the project forward, the developers have negotiated an unusual promotion for the complex, which has five 20-story towers in a postwar modernist style. In April, it will be the site of the 2008 Kips Bay Decorator Show House.

For most of its 36 years, the event has used a Manhattan town house (usually one that is about to go on the market) to provide a showcase for designers, who redesign rooms, usually luxuriously, and charge admission to benefit the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club, an organization that provides services to children in the Bronx.

But this year, the show house will take over six apartments, including two penthouses, on two floors at Manhattan House and turn them over to 19 designers. A rooftop lounge will be used to house a furniture retrospective by Vladimir Kagan. Some of the show apartments have been renovated, others have been left exactly as they were when the last tenant moved out, and some have been stripped down to concrete floors and exposed pipes.

“We can bring all the fantasy that people associate with the show to apartment living,” said Jennifer Skoda, the director of special events for the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club. The show is set to open to the public on April 24.

Ms. Skoda said the show would provide a challenge for designers, who must cope with a design problem common to white-brick buildings: though recognized as the first and perhaps greatest white-brick complex on the Upper East Side, with a curved drive and a private garden, it has relatively low apartment ceilings.

Developers bought Manhattan House from the New York Life Insurance Company in 2005 for $623 million, and the project has been caught up in a series of battles, some involving partners in the deal and others involving the sponsors and hundreds of market-rate and rent-stabilized tenants in the building.

Tenants sued to stop the conversion but have so far been rebuffed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. After the ruling, the sponsors threatened to sue the tenants and a tenant Web site for defamation. In a letter in January, lawyers for the sponsor complained that the tenants “have printed T-shirts with wording about asbestos and leaky pipes for the intent of disrupting sales.”

But in the last few months, after a development team — headed by Jeremiah W. O’Connor Jr. — brought in designers to create model apartments (and after the insider discount was increased to 25 percent below the asking price), sales began to take off.

Dolly Lenz, a Prudential Douglas Elliman broker who is leading the sales team, said that so far 53 apartments were in contract, including nine sold to insiders, and 20 more deals were nearly complete.

Rafael Urquia II, a lawyer and president of a tenants group, said tenants were prepared to meet with the developers about their complaints and perhaps a further reduction in sales prices, especially in view of the June deadline.

Yet at Manhattan House last week, as work crews knocked down a cinder-block wall in a $6 million penthouse to give Larry Laslo, a Kips Bay designer, a blank canvas with a larger entryway to work with, a stream of brokers, with clients in tow, wandered through the sponsor’s model apartments.

HSH Nordbank Reassigns US Loan Chief

Commercial Mortgage Alert
March 7, 2008

James Fitzgerald, head of North American lending for HSH Nordbank since June 2004, was reassigned as part of a corporate shakeup in the German lender’s home office.

Fitzgerald was replaced late last week by senior vice president Greg Allen, previously head of U.S. originations under Fitzgerald. Allen, in turn, was replaced by senior vice president Michael Carter, formerly senior relationship manager. A bank spokesman said Fitzgerald remains with HSH as a consultant, scouting out investment opportunities for the bank.

The turnover reflects turmoil at the lender’s Hamburg headquarters. Like many German banks, HSH suffered heavy losses from the U.S. subprime-mortgage meltdown. The stateowned bank has had to postpone an IPO, in the works since late 2005, until next year.

Claudio Lagemann, global head of real estate and Fitzgerald’s immediate superior in Hamburg, left the bank late in January. Allen reports to Peter Axmann, deputy head of global real estate, while the bank decides on its next move. Allen and Carter both joined HSH in 2006 from Aareal Financial Services. Allen oversaw Aareal’s commercial real estate operation. Carter was a managing director and loan originator.

Fitzgerald headed the New York office of Paris-based Credit Lyonnais before jumping to HSH in 2004. HSH then embarked on an ambitious expansion plan, opening a branch office in San Francisco and competing aggressively for a bigger share of the U.S. commercial lending market. Last April it launched HSH N Residual Value, a Bermuda-based provider of residual value insurance on commercial real estate, administered by CRCapital Advisors of Stamford, Conn.

Among HSH’s competitors, the ramped-up lending was seen as part of a drive to boost the bank’s profile in anticipation of the IPO. But the aggressive pricing strategies put the bank in a tight spot late last year when it found itself with an overhang of some $3 billion of commercial mortgages in need of syndication, leading to a suspension of lending. Company executives said lending would resume in a few weeks.

One of the bank’s biggest headaches was syndicating the $400 million senior portion of a $750 million floater that it originated last August on the Manhattan House condo-conversion project. The syndicate, which closed in December, includes Emigrant Savings, Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, HSBC, ING, M&T Bank and Wells Fargo. HSH retained the $350 million B-note.

HSH is embroiled in litigation with UBS over losses from a synthetic CDO (North Street, 2002-4) that UBS underwrote in March 2002. In a suit filed last month, HSH is seeking roughly $275 million in damages due to losses in the pool, which was tied to the U.S. mortgage market.

Divorce, developer style

The Real Deal
Author: Adam Piore
March 6, 2008

It was supposed to be a day of triumph for real estate mogul Richard Kalikow and his staff overseeing the conversion of the 583-unit Manhattan House into luxury condos.

Less than a week before, on March 30, 2007, New York State's Attorney General had signed off on the $1.1 billion condo conversion plan for the storied East Side property, on 65th between Second and Third avenues. That afternoon, Kalikow staffers had mailed the last of the sales offerings out to the building's tenants, a benchmark that took 18 months to reach.

But there would be no congratulatory messages from majority partner Jeremiah O'Connor that day. Instead, he served Kalikow with a legal notice demanding the commercial version of a divorce.

The pair's companies "have had numerous disagreements," O'Connor's lawyers would later state in a lawsuit. And they have been "unable to resolve their disagreements" (a point Kalikow denied).

Many of those differences, apparently, went to the heart of the project itself: What kind of apartments would sell — big ones or smaller ones? How much renovation did the building need? How should the project be marketed?

The breakup was sealed when a judge ordered one party to buy out the other.

Now, nearly five months since Kalikow finally agreed to sell his share of the massive property — reluctantly and under court order — to O'Connor, the imprint of Kalikow and his staff have largely faded from the project.

Today, the branding effort is in full bloom: plastering ads in magazines and newspapers featuring Grace Kelly, a former resident of the landmarked building, alongside the project's broker, Dolly Lenz, the vice chair of Prudential Douglas Elliman and widely regarded as the top agent in the city. House Beautiful has an eight-page spread profiling one of the model units designed by interior designer Jamie Drake in its March issue.

Beyond the polished surfaces, the developer has been busy putting in some 6,500 new windows, installing a new central air conditioning system and completing an upgrade of the electrical and plumbing systems. O'Connor has renovated 40 apartments and aims to complete an additional 180 apartments by year's end. (They currently have about 335 vacant apartments.)

About 51 condominiums are under contract with agreed deals on another 20 units, the developer said. Units sold range from studios to four-plus bedrooms ranging from $1,200 to $2,400 a square foot.

But before the luxury condos — with their wood-burning fireplaces, mahogany doors, sun-drenched living rooms and capacious balconies — were fodder for the pages of glossy real estate catalogues, the classic white brick complex was a cautionary tale for bad real estate marriages.


A record amount

The causes of the dispute over the costly condo conversion — the developers paid $623 million for the building, or a record of more than $1 million per apartment, at the height of the market — have remained largely a mystery, overshadowed in part by a parallel lawsuit launched by tenants against both developers.

Today, both partners are bound by confidentiality agreements not to discuss the matter, and the true story of what happened behind closed meeting doors may never be known.

Still, court documents and interviews with some of those caught in the middle suggest an outline of what went wrong, and offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse into a real estate feud that one contractor involved crowned "one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life."


Optimistic start

It began, like most marriages, with high hopes for the future. And in real estate circles, the two partners were the equivalent of a power couple.

Jeremiah W. O'Connor Jr., known to many as Jerry, had acquired and developed more than 10 million square feet of regional shopping malls in the 1980s, and has been managing private equity funds since 1994. Richard Kalikow, scion to a powerful real estate family and the cousin of former MTA chairman Peter Kalikow, had a track record for high-flying deals. In the 1980s, he'd converted more than 7,000 apartments to condos.

In the 1990s, he founded Max Capital Management Corp. with Adam Hochfelder. At its peak, Max Capital owned and managed 8 million square feet of office space worth $2.7 billion, including 230 Park Avenue, the Condé Nast Building and the Associated Press headquarters at 450 West 33rd Street.

On a side note, Kalikow and Hochfelder later suffered a nasty split detailed in a number of press accounts and a lawsuit of their own. After Kalikow sold his 60 percent share of the business to Hochfelder, he sued and accused him of withholding information that resulted in an unfair buyout price — an allegation that Hochfelder denied.

But back to our power couple: One source familiar with the project's origin said that the matchmaker of the Kalikow-O'Connor pairing was Howard Michaels, chairman and chief executive officer of the Carlton Group, the real estate investment banking firm that eventually arranged an $840 million equity and condo conversion financing package for the joint venture.

He put them together, the story goes, after they came in individually as top bidders in earlier rounds held by New York Life Insurance Company to sell the property. (Michaels did not return calls seeking comment, and neither partner would discuss how their courtship began.)

On its face, the pairing made sense — Kalikow had a history of managing high-class properties, O'Connor of investing in them. Under the terms of the deal, Kalikow and his ownership entity, Alpha Manhattan LLC, was the operating partner, running the day-to-day operations, while O'Connor's ownership interest, ONA Manhattan House LLC, held the majority share.


Winning bidders

Together, Kalikow and O'Connor outbid some of New York's biggest real estate names to win the right to buy the Manhattan House for $623 million. The vanquished back in October 2005 included Jerry Speyer, Aby Rosen, the Zeckendorfs and Dune Capital, among others.

"It's location, location, location," O'Connor crowed to a reporter at the time. "It's quality, quality, quality."

The deal set a national record, as the highest per-unit price paid for a single residential building slated for condo conversion. (The sale would later be eclipsed in total dollar value by deals like the purchase of Stuyvesant Town.)

In retrospect, the seeds of the nasty divorce may well have been present even on the day of the big purchase: In the overheated real estate market of the time — where the speed and audacity of the bid won the day — the newly paired moguls couldn't have had much time to discuss their respective "visions" for the property, before throwing their chips into the bidding pool and hoping to emerge victorious. The high price, with its resultingly small cap rate, left "that much less margin for error," noted one observer at the time.

Still, both partners clearly had high hopes for the property. An initial report filed with the state attorney general's office estimated that the project would eventually be worth $1.1 billion.

"I toured the property personally with Jerry when it was on the market," said Brett Buehrer, a principal at O'Connor Capital Partners and one of the partners involved with the project. "Jerry has always had a love for the building. It's a great building in a great location, with quality of construction. It's an irreplaceable asset."


Modern revolution

Originally built in 1951, Manhattan House was considered revolutionary when it opened. Designed by Gordon Bunshaft, who also designed Lever House, the humongous complex had a spare frame with Bauhaus-style balconies, a white-bricked façade, glass-walled lobbies and a sloping driveway.

With some 583 units, ranging from studios to five-bedrooms and rising some 22 stories, the monolithic structure that runs between 65th and 66th streets, bordered by Second and Third avenues, is fronted by a rare two-lane east-west boulevard.

The recent landmarking of the building may seem odd to those who don't think of white brick as being architecturally important, but the building's construction signified a departure — one of the first of its kind — from the more ornate architecture built in previous decades.

Most revolutionary, though, was the size of the apartments. The hard depression, war, and postwar years had convinced many developers to shrink the size of apartments. But the Manhattan House was based on the idea that people would pay for bigger ones. By buying up an entire city block, the architects were able to give each apartment at least two exposures to light and air. The building was constructed around a private park (the city's second largest, next to Gramercy) so that each apartment looked out on a garden or the street, avoiding alley views.

In today's market, with land prices and construction costs as they are, "you wouldn't be able to amass a whole block to build like this," Buehrer said. "The only thing you could do is build a 50-story tower. But this is built to the scale of the neighborhood."

The building soon attracted luminaries as residents: In addition to Grace Kelly, Benny Goodman and Jackie Robinson, Bunshaft moved in himself. The Manhattan House was one of the few private apartment buildings where you had to pass an interview just to become a renter, and the waiting list was sometimes years long.


Tenant battle

By the time of the conversion, many of those tenants were elderly and were reluctant to move. According to press accounts, some 250 of the units were rent-stabilized.

The tenants began causing the developers headaches immediately.

By spring of 2006, some six months after the deal closed, more than 60 tenants had packed up and left. But others bitterly complained they were being harassed, and forced out with no place to go. Several hundred ponied up for a legal defense fund, and hired tenant lawyer David Rozenholc to fight the plan.

Rozenholc, an experienced litigator, had fought Donald Trump to a standstill at 100 Central Park South, when the developer wanted to evict long-time, rent-controlled and stabilized tenants, gut the building and combine it with the Barbizon Hotel. At one point, he represented the tenants of the Ansonia in their battle against that building's new owners — one of the longest court battles in New York City's history.

Negative stories began appearing in local papers, describing elderly tenants squaring off with rapacious developers. The situation reached epic proportions by the following November, when a 97-year-old tenant named Martin Burwick died of pneumonia within days of moving out. (His lease was due up in April 2000.) Tenants blamed the death on the stress of eviction and construction at the site, which spewed fumes, dust, debris and, according to some claims, asbestos. Representatives for the developers denied responsibility, but the story didn't play well.

"A man is dead, and it's from the conditions in the building," one tenant told the New York Post.

The media jumped on the developers versus tenants battle — it got mentions in the New York Times, New York magazine and many other publications. But behind the scenes, a different kind of battle was brewing between the developers themselves, and this one would have a much bigger impact on the pace of the development itself.


Different views

The lawsuits the two moguls filed against one another last spring tell starkly different versions of the events. Indeed, Kalikow's lawyers claimed O'Connor concocted the disputes as an excuse to kick him off the project, and prevent him from receiving his fair share of the conversion profits. They claimed the disagreements were in the process of being worked out.

Whether that's true is difficult to determine. But it seems clear from talking to independent entities involved with the project that Kalikow and O'Connor had starkly different ideas for the property. To hear some involved tell it, the disputes began almost immediately.

"We became aware of different views in very early meetings," said one contractor. What followed was "one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life."

"The O'Connor people," said one person involved, "had a very different vision for the project than Richard did. They had a much more extensive renovation in mind. I think there was just differing views on what would sell, and what the market would support."

Though barred from speaking about anything having to do with the project before the October settlement, O'Connor principal Buehrer and the main broker on the project, Dolly Lenz, were eager to share their vision for the property, and offered a tour of the current apartments on the market.

Overall, the current plan calls for a $150 million renovation of the building. Most changes are slated for completion by June. The designers are the big names of the day: Sasaki Associates, the firm that designed the 2008 Beijing Olympic Green, is redesigning the grounds, porte-cochère entries and driveways. The original builders, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, are redoing the lobby. Randall Ridless, who designed the Burberry prototype store in London, has redone the rooftop area with a private lounge, bar and party area. The Roto Group, which designed the Children's Museum of Manhattan, is creating the children's play area. Exhale Spa and fitness center will open a resident-only gym, yoga center and spa in the building this spring.

"We wanted to create the premier condominium on the Upper East Side," Buehrer said. "It's a building with all the modern amenities, built to prewar standards."

It's unclear how much of this plan Kalikow signed off on. But by all accounts, it appears his vision called, at the very least, for a smaller price tag.

For instance, Buehrer said that the property had great location, and "great features with a great architectural pedigree. But we needed infrastructure in place to bring it to current standards. We needed to completely remodel the apartments — gut renovations."

But Jin Lee, chief financial officer for Kalikow's company Manchester Real Estate, told The Real Deal explicitly last winter that: "It's not a gut renovation. It has the same layouts with expensive finishes."

According to Buehrer, "to bring the building up to current standards, obviously, we thought we needed central air conditioning."

With many of the apartments still occupied and not slated for renovation until current tenants moved out, that meant installing a chiller and running central piping to each door, so it could be installed in each redone apartment.

But according to one contractor, Kalikow fought against the plan, pushing for a much cheaper solution: individual window and wall units.

The battle may even have extended to the marketing materials, a tussle some claim rose to a level of vitriol behind the scenes in November 2006, at the same time that press accounts were focused on the battle with the tenants and the death of Burwick.

O'Connor's lawyers claimed in the court documents that they informed Kalikow's people that the marketing materials "were not of appropriate quality for the project."

Rather than change the materials substantially, O'Connor claimed, Kalikow's people hired the same company to design an inferior Web site, according to O'Connor's legal claims. And when they showed O'Connor's staff new versions of the marketing materials, his side claimed, they were essentially unchanged.

Perhaps most significantly, the developers apparently disagreed on the right mix of apartment sizes. In the court documents, O'Connor's lawyers played up the differences, and accused Kalikow of making unilateral decisions and continually ignoring their input.

Kalikow's "proposed renovations would create an initial inventory of 66 units, of which nearly 50 percent would be studio and one-bedroom apartments, and would include a number of contiguous apartments that could have been — but were not — included in combined units."

That plan represented "a significant departure from the strategy of seeking to maximize the number of larger combination units because they sell at a significantly higher price per square foot than smaller units," the lawsuit claimed.

Kalikow "never consulted" O'Connor "concerning this unilateral, significant and improper deviation from the strategy of maximizing the number of larger combination units," the lawsuit contended.

In her affidavit, Jin Lee claimed that she sent O'Connor's people revised marketing materials and a new proposal for apartment renovations just weeks before they demanded a split, and that the differences could be worked out.

But when read portions of the complaint by The Real Deal, Jonathan Miller, executive vice president and director of research for Radar Logic, which is not involved in the case, said the two sides appeared to be arguing for "two completely different philosophies," and a legitimate argument could be made for both approaches. One approach calls for a more superficial renovation with more small apartments and selling them quickly; the other approach would invest more money in renovations, take more time and maximize the cost per square foot.

Because studios and one-bedrooms represent 40 percent of the market, they would likely sell faster than three-bedrooms, which during most quarters represents only about 5 percent of the market, a "smaller niche," Miller said.

On the other hand, he noted the "axiom in Manhattan real estate is that larger contiguous space commands a higher cost per square foot."

"One plus one equals two and half, so there is an argument you have the potential to achieve a premium simply by creating larger space," Miller said.

As for market trends, at the time of the Manhattan House purchase, Miller said, there was some statistical evidence to suggest that units sold were "trending down in size."

He added, "Overall average size of apartments that are selling are trending downwards slightly, but that's not to suggest studios are selling and three-bedrooms aren't."


Liquidity in jeopardy

Whatever the cause of the disagreements, it began to affect the liquidity of the project.

For months, the partners funded the construction with "capital calls," essentially their own money, because they couldn't agree on the wording of a $30 million letter of credit demanded by the bank before it would release funds, according to the court documents. One person on the project suggested that since O'Connor's plan called for a much more extensive renovation than Kalikow wanted, and required large amounts of capital, Kalikow had no incentive to expedite the arrival of bank funds.

It's also unclear from the lawsuit whether both partners, Kalikow or O'Connor put up the additional funds. But by the time the partners finally split, O'Connor had put up a total of $119 million of his own money versus Kalikow's $31 million, according to the court papers.

One thing that is beyond dispute is that the contractors on the project got caught in the middle.

The first to go was the renowned architect Annabelle Seldorf, who was brought in by O'Connor and fired by Kalikow, sources on the project said.

Also caught in the middle: Douglas Elliman, which Kalikow would eventually accuse of "colluding" with O'Connor to wrest control from him and sabotage the project. On May 12, 2006, O'Connor sent Kalikow a letter strongly objecting to "sending a default letter to Douglas Elliman."

"You have never discussed the issue with us," he wrote. "Under the terms of our joint venture agreement, taking any action that could result in termination of the Douglas Elliman agreement and assertion of any claim that Douglas Elliman is in default are major decisions that require our consent, and we will hold you accountable if you proceed without it."

Kalikow replied: "In response to our default letter to Douglas Elliman, Howard Lorber [the chairman] contacted me yesterday and has agreed to resolve this problem … by dedicating certain professionals from Douglas Elliman to act as our contacts and give us direct access to their resources …. We disagree with you that sending a default letter to Douglas Elliman to get their attention is a major decision."

In a letter dated November 2006, Kalikow's representative Jin Lee accused Skidmore, Owing & Merrill of falling behind schedule, creating delays and at one point "wrongfully withholding its basic services. In her letter, Lee threatened to "seek compensation for any project delays."

Exhale Enterprises landed in the crosshairs in early 2007. The high-end company has opened a number of trendy gyms offering yoga, workouts, massage and other spa services in the Hamptons, the Upper East Side and Los Angeles. It was a pet project of sorts for some on the renovation, who touted it along with plans for a rooftop lounge as essential to the high-end branding of modern "amenities," so crucial to O'Connor's vision.

In January 2007, Jin Lee terminated Exhale Spa, accusing it of being $50,000 over budget. "All along," O'Connor's staff wrote in a letter, O'Connor Capital Partners had told Manchester that "it viewed Exhale Spa as integral to Manhattan House's image and had pressed Alpha to work with Exhale Spa to resolve any issues."

O'Connor's company was involved in the process of selecting building manager Kerry Smith, but was not consulted on his termination or the selection of Carl Reinlib as building manager, Brett Buehrer said in his affidavit.

A source close to the project who requested anonymity claimed, "In order to punish Jerry, I think Kalikow threatened to fire every single person, just to kind of put a halt to the project to get attention to himself, to make his position stronger. Everybody on the same day."

By March, it seemed clear that communication between the two developers had almost completely broken down.

The interior design company Randall Ridless wrote to Jin Lee that on March 23, 2007, "we were met by Brett and Andy from the O'Connor group along with Howard Lorber and a group of people who appeared to be from Douglas Elliman. The tone of the entire group was hostile. To our surprise, they appeared completely unfamiliar with the existing space, its relationship/distance to the apartment building, and the evolution of the design to its current point."


Signing the divorce papers

On April 5, 2007, O'Connor sent Kalikow a notice of intent to dissolve their partnership, the real estate version of divorce papers. The papers notified Kalikow that his company was in default under their limited liability contract, and that O'Connor was invoking his right to buy or be bought out under the terms of their contract.

O'Connor cited breaches of the contract — the dispute over the marketing materials, problems with financing, and the change in the mix of apartments among them. Finally, his attorneys complained that the monthly progress reports they had been getting were "unsatisfactory," that they had repeatedly tried to get more information and that Kalikow had failed to address that concern.

O'Connor's lawyers blamed Kalikow for months of delays in renovations and accused his staff of mismanaging the project, noting that "it cannot be known how many sales and how much revenue have been and will continue to be lost as a result."

But Kalikow's lawyers claimed the issues in dispute were many months old and in the process of being resolved.

"The type of project contemplated by the agreement is multi-faceted and involves many elements of decision making that require constant, ongoing negotiations with regard to details and particulars," Jin Lee said in her affidavit. "This type of constant, ongoing negotiating has characterized the interactions between Alpha and ONA during the past 18 months."

The issues cited in the notice of intent "have been steadily progressing toward resolution," she stated. Lee claimed that she had sent O'Connor's people revised marketing materials and a new proposal for apartment renovations just weeks before the letter of intent and had been waiting for a response, and that they were in the final stages of coming up with the wording for a letter of credit that would have allowed them to avoid using capital calls.

She noted that the letter of intent coincided to the day with the completion of the mailing of the sales offering plan to all tenants at Manhattan House. That milestone brought Kalikow closer to reaching incentives that "ultimately may be as much as 40 percent of the company's distributions to the Members, rather than Alpha's percentage interest: 20.1 percent."

Lee claimed that the black book approval allowed the partnership to move into the "profit-making phase" of the project. The contract gave Kalikow's Alpha "an incentive to increase the value of the company's property, an increasingly and disproportionately large profit percentage at certain levels of profitability."

Each of the partners was to receive distributions from revenues proportional to their percentage interest in the company. But once each part received a certain level of return on their investments, Alpha's share of the profits would begin to increase — eventually almost more than doubling from 20.1 to as high as 40 percent.

O'Connor thus "has a tremendous incentive to invoke the buy-sell procedure at this juncture to eliminate Alpha," Lee contended.


Buyout ruling

In June, Justice Bernard J. Fried of New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan ordered that one partner buy the other out. The new owner wasn't mandated, so the decision gave Kalikow the choice of buying out O'Connor within 30 days, or allowing O'Connor to buy him out.

On July 18, Rubenstein Associates issued a press release announcing that Kalikow had received financing from UBS to buy out O'Connor. But two weeks later, Kalikow issued a second release stating, "Alpha will not become the purchasing member pursuant to the Buy-Sell notice …. Alpha confirms that ONA will close the acquisition of Alpha's interest in Manhattan Partners LLC no later [than] August 31, 2007." Kalikow later claimed that O'Connor had scared away his backers by threatening to escalate the legal dispute.

There would be one more legal fusillade. In late August, Kalikow accused Douglas Elliman of colluding with O'Connor to wrest control from him and sabotage the project. He said that he had discovered that Lenz and other Elliman staff members held a number of secret weekly meetings with O'Connor's team, revising plans and making decisions without him. He asked the Supreme Court to allow him to amend his complaint against O'Connor to include Prudential Douglas Elliman and to seek $75 million in damages as well as punitive damages against the company.

But Lenz said she is not aware of such a complaint ever having been filed against Elliman — or even of Kalikow's request to do so.

It was not until Oct. 9 of last year that the case was finally resolved. O'Connor obtained $750 million in financing from a German bank, HSH Nordbank AG, and took over the project.

The sales office opened up immediately. O'Connor held a party on the roof of a newly built Manhattan club. And the outlook for future sales? One hundred thirteen potential buyers toured available apartments in one weekend alone, a fraction of the thousands who have walked the halls since October.


The divorce timeline

October 2005: Kalikow and O'Connor win bid for Manhattan House with $623 million offer.

Spring 2006: Several hundred Manhattan House tenants hire lawyer David Rozenholc to fight the Kalikow-O'Connor conversion plans.

May 2006: O'Connor complains to Kalikow for sending a "default letter" to Douglas Elliman without consulting him.

August 2006: Rozenholc sends letter to the attorney general's office requesting an investigation into the conduct of the building's owners and their lenders, regarding their conversion plans.

November 2006: Martin Burwick, 97, dies of pneumonia days after moving out of the Manhattan House. Tenants blame his death on stress of eviction and unhealthy conditions in the building during renovations.

January 2007: Kalikow's company, Manchester Real Estate, terminates Exhale Spa, which was brought on to run a gym and yoga center in the building. Manchester CFO says Exhale was $50,000 over budget.

March 30, 2007: Attorney general's office approves the building's $1.1 billion condo conversion plan.

April 5, 2007: O'Connor sends Kalikow notice of intent to dissolve their
partnership. On the same day, the sales offering plan for the newly converted condo is mailed to all building tenants.

June 2007: State Supreme Court Justice Bernard J. Fried orders one partner to buy the other one out within 30 days.

August 1, 2007: Kalikow announces that O'Connor will purchase his interest.

Mid-August 2007: Kalikow seeks permission in court to amend the lawsuit to accuse Elliman of colluding with O'Connor and to seek damages.

October 2007: O'Connor borrows $750 million from German bank HSH Nordbank AG to purchase Kalikow's stake in the building; he opens the sales office immediately.

Asbestos Removal Problem Fixed

The tenants who reported asbestos removal problems on January 17 now
reports that the issue has been satisfactorily addressed and resolved by
the owners.

Unsafe Asbestos Procedures Found at Manhattan House

Check out these photos of a riser taken earlier this week at Manhattan House. The door to this apartment, which is currently being renovated, was left open and a resident took the pictures. The asbestos surrounding the pipe is clearly visible!

This is inexcusable. Families with children live on this floor. Workers handling the asbestos are not being given proper safeguards.

View photo #1

View photo #2

Manhattan House headache

Excerpted from "Playing by a new set of rules for condo conversions"
The Real Deal, January 2008, by David Jones

After settling a bitter legal dispute with former co-owner Richard Kalikow, developer Jerry O’Connor put together an ambitious plan to convert Manhattan House into a hotel-quality luxury residence, with spa facilities, a resident manager with 65 on-site concierge staff, valet parking, a children’s play center and a 10,000-square-foot rooftop lounge.

But that conversion isn’t moving as smoothly as the developer would like, due in part to tenant complaints. Manhattan House tenants complain that the building suffers from extensive flooding, asbestos contamination, rodents and other problems that the management is trying to cover up.

In an amended filing, Manhattan House officials boosted the insider discount to tenants by 10 points to 25 percent. Only three of the first 15 sales came from insiders, according to the tenants’ group.

Read the full article here

Article 78 ruling

Judge Lewis Bart Stone has ruled Manhattan House tenants have no legal standing to file an Article 78 proceeding to halt the owner's condominium plan.

David Rozenholc, attorney for the Manhattan House Tenants Group, said the decision is wrong and contrary to New York State law decided in 1975. The decision will be appealed.

Read the decision here