The Carlyle Group closed Tuesday on the purchase of an interest in the retail condo at 666 Fifth Avenue, the tower that Kushner Companies bought last year for a then-record $1.8 billion, according to a source familiar with the deal.

The Carlyle Group—the mammoth private-equity group that manages $82.7 billion in 60 funds worldwide and recently, with Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., bought 650 Madison Avenue for $680 million—is buying in partnership with Stanley Chera’s Crown Acquisitions. The 49 percent stake, as reported by Bloomberg News, in the approximately 90,000-square-foot retail portion, which includes a Brooks Brothers and the NBA Store, is valued in the deal at $525 million.  read more »

Is James Nelson a Pollyanna?

Mr. Nelson, a partner and managing director at Massey Knakal, believes too much is being made of the tribulations in the city’s sexy, trophy-tower, over-$100 million investment sales market. And too little is being made of the relatively healthy, yet decidedly less glam, more modestly priced market in which his firm specializes.

“As far as the percentage of properties that sell under $100 million is concerned, there are so many more sales,” he said. An obvious, yet oft-overlooked, point.

“Clearly everyone’s been following the Macklowe properties,” Mr. Nelson said, referring to recent trophy-tower transactions that included the record sale of the GM Building.  read more »

Under the new leadership of the dashing Billy Macklowe, Macklowe Properties appears to be lumbering ahead with its complicated and complication-ridden Drake Hotel development.

Either that, or Macklowe Properties is busy assembling a more lucrative parcel in the East 50s around Park Avenue to put on the market—Macklowe was reportedly considering selling the mega-site in May, before successfully selling the GM Building to Mort Zuckerman’s Boston Properties for a record-breaking $2.8 billion.

Either way, Audemars Piguet, the sole tenant in 40 East 57th Street, is out. Capping 14 months of negotiations, Macklowe has bought out the remaining 10 years on the Swiss watchmaker’s lease.  read more »

The commercial real estate market must really be wretched. How else to explain Cushman & Wakefield’s midyear breakfast on Tuesday morning when, in Michael’s glassed-in patio, a couple of ballsy brokers erupted with skepticism, calling into question their bosses’ own stats—to those bosses’ faces. In front of the press.

“If I were sitting in the media looking at the stats, I’d think that someone was drinking the Kool-Aid,” said Joshua Kuriloff, a broker at the firm.

Mr. Kuriloff even uttered the R-word (“recession”) to describe the economy—a term that’s verboten among most real estate types, who favor limper nouns like “contraction,” “slowdown” and “downturn.  read more »

Greenwich Village has a very young new landlord.

Earlier this year, a 22-year-old handbag designer and freelance fashion writer named Charmaine Ho bought a 25-foot-wide Greek Revival townhouse on West Ninth Street. According to city records, a limited liability corporation in her name paid $8.1 million.

Her parents, who still live in the Hong Kong house where she was born and raised, are paying for almost all of the townhouse. “I can contribute as much as I can, but it’s not enough, and they’ll have to help me,” said Ms. Ho, reached through a school e-mail address. “I don’t even have a full-time salary! I work part-time for a small designer, and then I also write things for Web sites.  read more »

It’s been about seven years since David Neville founded Rag & Bone with a friend from English boarding school, but their pristine $480 split back swing dresses, $215 western shirts, $505 hooded capes and matching $215 tailored leggings are the kinds of things that get designers very far very quickly in this town.

Mr. Neville and his wife, the star makeup artist Gucci Westman, just bought a duplex penthouse loft at the Spears Building, a former warehouse on West 22nd Street. According to city records, they paid $4.426 million.

“We’re so excited to get in there,” Mr. Neville said. “My wife, she’s definitely pretty good with interiors and color; that’s what she does.  read more »

The fact that imperial Metropolitan Museum of Art director Philippe de Montebello is ending his 31-year tenure in just a few months is bad enough for the Upper East Side’s delicate collective psyche. But what would happen to the neighborhood’s sense of nobility if the molasses-voiced descendent of Napoleonic aristocracy (and, on his mother’s side, of the Marquis de Sade) actually moved away?

According to city records, Mr. de Montebello and his wife, Edith, director of financial aid at the Trinity School, sold their two-bedroom co-op at 25 East 86th Street this month for $2.195 million.

The buyer is graphic designer Holly Okner, whose father happens to be the investor Peter A.  read more »

The Real Estate will be posting sporadically from Wednesday, July 2, through Tuesday, July 8. We're back in full July 9. Happy Fourth!

This May, it took Christine Wasserstein less than a week to find a buyer for her $34 million apartment (which she’d kept after a divorce from New York magazine owner Bruce Wasserstein). Her neighbors at 1030 Fifth Avenue—where, for example, Diane Sawyer and Mike Nichols live in Robert Redford’s old penthouse—were probably impressed.

Barnard trustee Karen Fleiss, who founded the hedge fund KMF Partners, and her husband, David, a Fifth Avenue orthopedic surgeon, have put their duplex there on the market for $47.5 million, one of the most expensive apartment listings ever in New York.

“I’m not going to respond to that,” said Ms.  read more »

Until the end of last month, Governor David Paterson had little connection in the public’s mind with the World Trade Center site. Unlike his predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, he did not loudly spout off in a campaign about mismanagement downtown; and unlike former Governor George Pataki, he was not involved in the planning process that led to the design for the site.

But all that changed June 30, when Mr. Paterson’s new executive director at the Port Authority, Christopher Ward, delivered—at his boss’ request—a candid report outlining a list of challenges at the site in need of resolution, warning of a need for more money, more coordination and more time to finish.  read more »