Kent Swig

Merle Gross-Ginsberg recalled a dinner hosted by the Real Estate Board of New York back in 1975, where she, Leona Helmsley and one other woman were grossly outnumbered by some 1,800 men—"all smoking the most enormous cigars you've ever seen," she said.

The industry's vast gender gap has slowly begun to close in recent years. Yet, even at the Association of Real Estate Women's 30th Anniversary gala at the Mandarian Oriental Hotel at Time Warner Center on Thursday night, males still dominated the crowd by about 2 to 1. Maybe even 3 to 1.  read more »

Two Manhattan museums have sold their buildings recently, with the transactions both popping up in public records within the past 24 hours.

First, Kent Swig's Swig Equities has dropped some cash for a coin museum, paying $23.9 million for the American Numismatic Society’s building at 138 William Street.  read more »

Kent Swig just bought Helmsley-Spear, the building services firm once run by Leona, and he’s selling condos fast at the Sheffield. He also co-owns brokerages Brown Harris Stevens and Halstead Property as well as 9 million square feet of Manhattan commercial space. And, oh, he’s a Macklowe in-law and lives in 740 Park.  read more »

The Observer sat down with mega-developer and mega-landlord (mega-everything!) Kent Swig early this morning for an interview that will be published in Wednesday’s paper. He talked about his takeover of the Helmsley-Spear building-services firm and noted that there’s a lot of opportunity for it in New York.

After all, Manhattan’s roughly 400 million square feet of office space (most of it Class A) dwarfs that of other cities, as Mr. Swig notes:

If you add it up: downtown San Francisco, downtown L.A., downtown Philadelphia, downtown Boston, downtown Washington, DC, and downtown Chicago—the six largest cities [together in terms of office space] outside of Manhattan, you don’t equal Manhattan.

 

Sheffield57, the mammoth condo conversion in midtown, has completed sales of over 40 percent of its units, according to its developer Kent Swig. Closings have begun and owners have been moving into the 570 condos.

It's been a long and winding road for Sheffield57 and Mr. Swig. He and his partners bought the rental building in 2005 for $418 million. Doubts soon surfaced that the planned conversion of the more than 800 rental units into a lot fewer condos was too ambitious given the supposedly slowing sales market and the Sheffield's location in commercial-heavy midtown (it's right next to the new Hearst Tower). Then, once the conversion got under way in earnest, 23 market-rate tenants sued Mr. Swig and won in March, allowing them to continue living in the building even though their leases have run out. At the same time, some of the Sheffield's rent-stabilized tenants organized against Mr. Swig, citing safety concerns stemming from the renovations in the building. City inspectors in April found that the ceiling coating in the Sheffield contained asbestos and ordered a halt to any work on the ceiling until an abatement plan could be implemented.

"The trace amounts are way under the legal limit," Mr. Swig told The Observer's Matthew Schuerman in April.

Nonetheless, Mr. Swig was ordered to hire an asbestos-licensed firm to clean the building's common areas and to use a licensed abatement firm to continue work on the ceilings. He also agreed to offer the current tenants air-monitoring tests and cleaning services inside their apartments.

Then, of course, there was the marching band incident. As tenants rallied with City Council Member Gale Brewer outside the building, Mr. Swig apparently sent by a marching band to drown them out.

Whoever said real estate here was subtle?

The Observer's John Koblin, covering the U.S. Open round-the-clock out in Flushing, spotted impeccably blond real estate mogul Kent Swig sitting courtside on Wednesday evening. Mr. Swig was there for the Venus Williams-Jelena Jankovic match, and stayed for the epic Roger Federer-Andy Roddick contest.

 

 

 

 

The owner of the Sheffield57, a West 57th Street building undergoing a contentious condo conversion and renovation , has become very, well, accommodating.

The building’s management sent a memo to the remaining tenants Thursday indicating they would need to vacate their apartments for the night because of a city-ordered asbestos clean-up. Now, however, a building spokesman told The Observer that the original estimate for how long the clean-up would take had been revised downward from 36 hours to “three or four.”  read more »

It is always nice to buy something that has appeared in Architectural Digest. But something that made it into The New York Times’ Big Deal column this past weekend under the rubric “Piggyback Condo Faces a Legal Setback” may appeal to a different type of customer altogether.  read more »

Come Back to San Gennaro: The Mob is Deeply Missed
City officials have since strived to cleanse San Gennaro of certain less than desirable elements: No more gambling. No more booze-slinging street vendors. And, if you believe the current organizers, no more Mafia involvement. Mob mentality, though, still has its place. Go to story by Chris Shott.  read more »

City inspectors found that the ceiling coating at the Sheffield on West 57th Street, which is undergoing a renovation as part of a condo conversion, contains asbestos and ordered a halt to any work on the ceiling until an abatement plan could be put into place.  read more »

Forrest "Frosty" Myers' iconic Soho sculpture "The Wall" is returning to its rightful home at 599 Broadway, after a lengthy argument with the building's landlord. We mirrored the picture because it looks totally cool. [Villager]

Manhattan State Supreme Court Justice Joan Madden won't stop Bruce Ratner from starting his Atlantic Yards demolitions.
 read more »

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One of the steps that Kent Swig took to convert the Sheffield from stolid rentals to luxury condos was adding the number seven to each floor (that's how the Sheffield57 came to have 57 stories). It was one of numerous complaints by tenants that The Observer did not report in its story this week about the building's conversion pains. Mr.  read more »

First, market-rate renters sued Kent Swig and won. Now, stabilized tenants claim asbestos hassles and have the politicians involved. What’s next for the midtown monolith?  read more »

Markowitz Claims Jitney for Brooklyn   It all started with Marty Markowitz:    read more »

Markowitz Claims Jitney for Brooklyn   It all started with Marty Markowitz:    read more »

A housing court judge on Tuesday slammed Kent Swig's plan to kick out market-rate tenants at Sheffield 57--even though their leases were up and had not been renewed--as part of his conversion of the West 57th Street building to swank condominiums.

The ruling, if upheld, is going to put Mr. Swig and numerous other developers in a bind. They have long been unable to kick market-rate tenants out after a conversion has been completed. Now, thanks to Judge David B. Cohen, they will not be able to kick them out while the conversion is under way, either.

"It is a very important case," said Arthur Weinstein, a real estate lawyer and vice president of the Council of New York Cooperatives. "If it survives on appeal, it closes a significant gap in the existing law governing the conversion of occupied buildings into cooperative or condominium status."

Rent-regulated tenants have long been protected from eviction during a conversion, but the rule on market-rate tenants is more vague.

Landlords are prohibited from emptying buildings by more than 10 percent before a conversion is filed, so generally they wait until the conversion is under way and then get rid of market-rate tenants by letting leases lapse, which is what Mr. Swig did in the case of Sheffield 57. That allows landlords to renovate, combine units, and generally make a profit.

Judge Cohen's decision closes this option for now, and leaves landlords to either negotiate down to sell condos to the market-rate tenants, or crank up the rents to force them to leave--although the tenants are also protected against excessive rent increases.

The ruling centers on the part of the state law governing conversions which states that "no eviction proceedings will be commenced at any time against non-purchasing tenants for failure to purchase or any other reason applicable to expiration of tenancy." Judge Cohen said that it applies to market-rate tenants with expired leases.

Needless to say, Mr. Swig is appealing. "We chose not to renew the leases of the market-rate tenants, and there were 23 of them who did not want to leave," Mr. Swig told The Real Estate. "The law is black and white. If you don't have a lease and you are not rent-regulated, then you have no right to occupy."

Since buying the high-rise in March 2005, Mr. Swig has pretty much emptied the 50-story building except for the 23 defendants and about 100 rent-regulated tenants.

Mr. Swig said that he offered the defendants insider prices at "way below the market."

The president of the tenants association and a defendant in the eviction case, Nancy Rovelli, told The Real Estate that in most cases the offers did not represent a discount off the black book, or first offering prices, but rather off later amendments.

"When Judge Cohen was hearing the case, he did indicate and encourage negotiations, and at that point we did, but nothing ever came of it," Ms. Rovelli said. "Not only was [Mr. Swig] jacking up the prices but he was inflating the square feet."

- Matthew Schuerman

The Real Deal magazine hosted a forum at Lincoln Center on Tuesday evening about new development in New York City. The Real Estate, because of The Observer's usual late close, was not able to make the forum, though one wonders what more can possibly be said about new development now (It's happening! It's expensive! It takes forever sometimes! It involves Michael Shvo somehow!).

The forum's panel included heavies like Robert "Irrational Exhuberance" Shiller of Yale, City Planning Director Amanda Burden, Stephen Ross of the Related Companies (and chairman of the Real Estate Board of New York), downtown landlord Kent Swig, and Jonathan "Matrix" Miller, appraiser. (Full disclosure: This reporter used to work at The Real Deal.)

The Real Estate did make the forum's after-party, in a 10th-floor space at 165 West 65th Street, with a wonderful view of midtown as it slid into early spring slumber. We ran into Steve Cuozzo of the New York Post, who moderated the forum's panel, as he left. We also had a long talk with Braden Keil of the Post, and learned insights about the real-estate beat in New York we had thought were mere urban legend.

And finally, as we schmoozed about a party that felt like a prom for real estate (minus the bad clothes, but with the angst cranked to 11), we discovered the event served as a barometer for how addictive real-estate remains as a topic in this city.

"It says a lot for the real-estate market when you have nearly 3,000 people paying $30 to attend a forum to hear a panel on new development," said Amir Korangy, publisher of The Real Deal. "People are still very interested."

- Tom Acitelli