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☆ New York Attorney General Questions Trump’s $175 Million Bond Deal
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-04 | by ( Ben Protess | Matthew Haag | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The New York attorney general’s office on Thursday took exception to a $175 million bond that Donald J. Trump recently posted in his civil fraud case, questioning the qualifications of the California company that provided it. The dispute stems from a $454 million judgment Mr. Trump is facing in the case, which the attorney general’s office brought against the former president and his family business. The attorney general, Letitia James, accused Mr. Trump of fraudulently inflating his net worth, leading to a monthslong trial last year that ended with a judge imposing the huge penalty. Mr. Trump appeared to stave off this calamity on Monday when he posted the $175 million bond from the California firm, Knight Specialty Insurance Company. Although he was originally required to secure a guarantee for the full $454 million judgment, an appeals court recently granted him a break, allowing him to post the smaller bond.

Persons: Donald J, Trump, Letitia James, Mr, James Organizations: New, Knight Specialty Insurance Locations: New York, California, York

☆ The Hotel Guest Who Wouldn’t Leave
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-24 | by ( Matthew Haag | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On a June afternoon in 2018, a man named Mickey Barreto checked into the New Yorker Hotel. He was assigned Room 2565, a double-bed accommodation with a view of Midtown Manhattan almost entirely obscured by an exterior wall. Instead, he made the once-grand hotel his full-time residence for the next five years, without ever paying another cent. In a city where every inch of real estate is picked over and priced out, and where affordable apartments are among the rarest of commodities, Mr. Barreto had perhaps the best housing deal in New York City history. Now, that deal could land him in prison.

Persons: Mickey Barreto, Barreto, Christopher Columbus’s Organizations: New Locations: Midtown Manhattan, New York City, California

☆ This Real Estate Kingpin Maps Out the Path to Megadeals
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-11 | by ( Matthew Haag | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The best view of New York City might just be in a near-windowless conference room on the 12th floor of a Midtown Manhattan office building. Splayed across 10 folding tables, a map pieced together with paper, tape and sticky notes details every block and parcel — 27,649 properties — in Manhattan below 96th Street on the East Side and 110th Street on the West Side. The map is the work of Bob Knakal, who created it by walking every avenue and street during the desolate early months of the pandemic. Updated regularly, the lots are color-coded with highlighters and sticky notes to show which are for sale (green sticky notes), were recently sold (red sticky notes), are owned by the city (pink highlights) or are under construction (green highlights). Orange highlights means a lot is underutilized — and there is a possible deal to be made.

Persons: Bob Knakal Locations: New York City, Midtown Manhattan, Manhattan

A former executive at a prominent New York City development firm that collapsed amid an avalanche of investor lawsuits and foreclosures was arrested this week and is expected to be charged in connection with a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme, according to several people with knowledge of the case. The developer, Nir Meir, was taken into custody on Monday at the 1 Hotel South Beach in Miami and was expected to be extradited to New York City on the charges, which were brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, the people said. Several other people and businesses were expected to be charged in a series of indictments brought by the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, as part of a sprawling web of suspected criminal conduct involving Mr. Meir’s former company, HFZ Capital Group. Those expected to be charged include people involved with the construction firm Omnibuild, which worked on at least one major HFZ project, including a principal at the company, some of the people with knowledge of the matter said.

Persons: Nir Meir, Alvin L, Bragg, Meir’s Organizations: HFZ Capital Group Locations: New York City, Beach, Miami, Manhattan

☆ The N.Y.C. Neighborhood Where Families Are Filling Up Empty Offices
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-17 | by ( Matthew Haag | More About Matthew Haag | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For all the talk about converting New York City’s languishing office buildings into housing, just one neighborhood has done it on a large scale: the financial district. In the past few years, luxury apartments have been carved out of a 1907 office tower at 84 William Street and an Art Deco skyscraper at 1 Wall Street that was once the Bank of New York’s headquarters. Five other office buildings are being gutted and turned into residences, including a project that is the largest such conversion in the United States. But the high-rise conversions are just part of a wave of modifications in the area that started decades ago with the transformation of low-rise buildings and continues today with enormous glass and steel towers. The financial district name has become something of a misnomer as the neighborhood, once derided as a desert after the bankers commute home, becomes a vibrant residential enclave at Manhattan’s southernmost tip.

Persons: William Street Organizations: William, Art, Bank of New Locations: New York, United States

For years, landlords around the world clamored to get WeWork into their office buildings, a love affair that made the co-working company the largest corporate tenant in New York and London. Now, WeWork is perhaps days away from a bankruptcy filing — and its demise could not come at a worse time for office landlords. With fewer employees going into the office since the pandemic, companies have slashed the amount of space they lease, causing one of the worst crunches in decades in commercial real estate. Many landlords have accepted lower rents from WeWork in recent years to keep it afloat, but its bankruptcy would be an enormous blow. Some landlords might quickly accept lower rents from WeWork as part of a bankruptcy reorganization and keep doing business with any new entity that emerges, but others might have to fight in court to get anything.

Locations: New York, London, WeWork

☆ The Flatiron Building Will Be Converted Into Condos
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-26 | by ( Matthew Haag | More About Matthew Haag | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Mayor Eric Adams has made the conversion of struggling office buildings into residences a major component of his attempt to address New York City’s housing shortage. Mr. Amro said that despite the Flatiron’s quirky interior, its numerous windows would make a conversion into residences far easier than most office buildings. But the construction would require some major internal changes: Stairs and elevators must be moved around and consolidated. The owners have considered various plans, some with multiple units on each floor, with about 40 total residences. The ground floor, however, will remain retail space; T-Mobile has a store there with a long-term lease.

Persons: Eric Adams, Jonathan J, Miller, Miller Samuel Real, ” Organizations: Department of City, Amro, Mobile Locations: York

As Columbia University puts the last touches on its brand-new campus in Harlem, it has reached a milestone: The university is now the largest private landowner in New York City. In a city where land is more valuable than almost anywhere in the nation, the school now owns more than 320 properties, with a combined value of nearly $4 billion. The growth has helped it stay competitive within the Ivy League and meet its broader ambitions to become a global institution. By many measures, those ambitions have also helped lift the city around it, attracting higher numbers of students, producing new jobs and boosting New York’s reputation as an international center of knowledge. But as Columbia has expanded its footprint, it has also become more of a drain on the city budget because of a state law more than 200 years old that allows universities, museums and other nonprofits to pay almost no property taxes.

Organizations: Columbia University, Ivy League Locations: Harlem, New York City, Columbia

New York is doing better than San Francisco — Manhattan has a vacancy rate of 13.5 percent — but it can no longer count on the technology industry for growth. More than one-third of the roughly 22 million square feet of office space available for sublet in Manhattan comes from technology, advertising and media companies, according to Newmark. The company has opted not to renew leases covering 250,000 square feet in Hudson Yards and for 200,000 square feet on Park Avenue South. Twitter, Microsoft and other technology companies are also trying to sublease unwanted space. The large amount of space available for sublet is also driving down the rents that landlords are able to get on new leases.

Persons: Newmark, ”, Ruth Colp, Haber, Colp Organizations: sublet, New, New York State, Spotify, Trade Center, Twitter, Microsoft, Wharton Property Advisors Locations: York, Francisco —, Manhattan, New York, Hudson Yards

Such an explosion of migrants, which is estimated to cost $4.3 billion by July 2024, would test any American city. In New York, the arrivals were met by a system that had already been under pressure because of factors of the city’s own making. More homeless people compete for homes, until the shelter becomes the home. It was met by aid workers with blankets and the handshakes and cheers of a city that prided itself on stepping up. Shelters opened faster than pop-up restaurants, more than 170 since last spring, sometimes overnight.

Persons: ”, Adolfo Abreu, — Organizations: Vocal Locations: New York, Texas

☆ A Pier Deal Is Full of Developer Perks, but Is It Good for the City?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-11 | by ( Matthew Haag | Dana Rubinstein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“From an economic development standpoint, it’s a giveaway,” said Jeffrey LeFrancois, the chair of Manhattan Community Board 4, which covers a stretch of the West Side that includes the pier. “Given that Vornado has already had the ability to do this the past 13 years and done nothing, it’s outrageous that they are taking this pier from taxpayers for pennies on the dollar.”Mr. LeFrancois said the terms were particularly friendly because Vornado, which primarily operates office buildings in New York City, has been eager to find new revenue sources as companies jettison physical offices. The relationship is mutually beneficial: Developers get to build on city land, and the mayor gets to point to new projects as evidence that he is leading New York out of the pandemic. In Queens, the mayor has touted a plan to redevelop a swath of the borough that will include the new soccer stadium and what officials have described as the largest construction of entirely affordable housing since the Mitchell-Lama developments of the 1970s. Like other stadiums in the city, the new one will not pay property taxes, although the team that will play there, the New York City Football Club, will pay some rent.

Persons: ”, Jeffrey LeFrancois, Vornado, Mr, LeFrancois, ” Mr, Adams, Mitchell Organizations: Manhattan Community, New York City Football Club Locations: New York City, New York, Queens

☆ What Record Office Vacancies Mean for New York City’s Economy
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Matthew Haag | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Why It Matters: Office buildings tell the story of New York City’s economy. Before the pandemic, office buildings drove a significant share of the city’s economy. Private-sector workers in office buildings make about double the average annual salary than everyone else, according to the New York State Comptroller, underscoring their significance to the city’s economy. Office buildings are vital to New York’s economy for another reason: Their property taxes supply a chunk of New York City’s annual revenue. As vacancies linger, New York City, as well as other municipalities, have floated the idea of converting some buildings into residences.

☆ Guess How Much These New York Jobs Pay
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Matthew Haag | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Guess How Much These New York Jobs PayStarting this week, most companies in New York City were required to include salary ranges on job postings, offering a window into potential compensation not just for applicants but also the curious general public. In a city full of iconic jobs — taxi driver, bagel baker, right fielder for the New York Yankees — take our quiz to see how well you can guess salaries on some only-in-New-York job openings.

To see how much jobs in the creator economy pay, Insider analyzed salary data from 142 work-visa applications filed with the US government and decided on between October 2020 and June 2022. The pay data includes salaries ranging from a data scientist position that offers $170,000 per year at Discord to a staff engineer role that earns $250,000 or more at Patreon. At Cameo, a principal software engineer would make $230,000Steven Galanis, CEO of Cameo. Senior Manager, DevOps : $140,000: $140,000 Statistician: $116,979 to $170,000 (Spotter said it internally calls this position "Data Analyst.") At Teachable, a senior software engineer would make $150,000Teachable is a platform where creators can build and sell online courses and coaching programs.

Organizations: & $

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