Jerry Speyer

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Attorneys for tenants in a vast New York City apartment complex said they would ask the state court to set the next 2010 rents if negotiations with landlord Tishman Speyer are unsuccessful. The tenants lawyers also want Tishman Speyer to hand over control of an escrow account holding a portion of the rents. In a statement issued late on Tuesday afternoon, Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP and Bernstein Liebhard LLP said they are continuing the good faith discussions with Tishman Speyer representatives. They are working to develop a framework to resolve issues left open last month when the ... Read Full Story

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tenants in a vast New York City apartment complex and its owner, real estate private equity firm Tishman Speyer on Friday said they had opened talks to settle a rent clash, one day before a planned rally against the landlord. New York's top court on October 22, ruled that Tishman Speyer and BlackRock Realty Advisors, the real estate arm of money manager BlackRock Inc, which in 2006 paid $5.4 billion for Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, had wrongly raised thousands of the apartment complex's rents. "Representatives for the property owner and Alexander Schmidt ... the counsel for the plaintiffs ... Read Full Story

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The joint venture that borrowed heavily to buy Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village in 2006 could be among the first to take advantage of changes in U.S. tax law that let borrowers seek payment relief, when it said last week that it could not keep paying interest on a $3 billion loan. On Friday, the $3 billion senior mortgage was transferred to the special servicer CWCapital after the borrower -- real estate private equity firm Tishman Speyer and BlackRock Realty Advisors, the real estate arm of money manager BlackRock Inc -- asked for relief from paying the debt service ... Read Full Story

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The joint venture that borrowed heavily to buy Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village in 2006 could be among the first to take advantage of changes in U.S. tax law that let borrowers seek payment relief, when it said last week that it could not keep paying interest on a $3 billion loan. On Friday, the $3 billion senior mortgage was transferred to the special servicer CWCapital after the borrower -- real estate private equity firm Tishman Speyer and BlackRock Realty Advisors, the real estate arm of money manager BlackRock Inc -- asked for relief from paying the debt service ... Read Full Story

It was the most expensive real estate deal in U.S. history. Now it's poised to become one of the biggest flops. At the height of the real estate bubble in 2006, an investment group led by New York City real estate firm Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty Advisors paid $5.4 billion for a pair of gigantic Manhattan apartment complexes known as Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. The price seemed outrageous to many, but the company believed it had a winning strategy: It would aggressively convert thousands of rent-regulated apartments occupied by middle-class families into luxury units that would fetch top dollar. Three ... Read Full Story