Developers Vornado Realty Trust and the Related Companies are grasping for options to keep alive a multibillion dollar redo of Penn Station and related real estate development, as they have asked the city and state to back a loan to build a new Madison Square Garden in the Farley Post Office across Eight Avenue.

The proposal is intended to lure the Garden back to the table, as the company, led by Chairman James Dolan, pulled out of the larger plan in March. The state is considering the offer as one of many options for the project, a state official confirmed.

In this option, the state and city could be saddled with the cost of the arena—said to be in the range of $900 million to $1 billion—should the larger redo of Penn Station ultimately fall apart.  read more »

A team led by the Hudson Companies will give rise to a mixed-income village along the banks of the once-toxic Gowanus Canal, the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development announced today. The Gowanus “Public Place” will have 774 units of housing (541 below market rate) among a complex of buildings, and comes as the city eyes a transformation for the once (and still, to some extent) industrial area.

The winning team, which also includes the Bluestone Organization, the Fifth Avenue Committee and Jonathan Rose Companies, beat out Stephen Ross, the Miami Dolphins-owning, constantly building CEO of The Related Companies.

Mr. Ross, who built the Time Warner Center, has had a big string of defeats in the competitions on publicly-owned land. Related’s Pier 40 proposal has been all but tossed out, the company lost its bid for the West Side rail yards after News Corp. pulled out as an anchor tenant, and now this.

Toll Brothers has its own residential project lining the Canal, as does Whole Foods, which is trying to put a supermarket on a brownfield.  read more »

Despite the national housing market crisis and some serious global competition, Manhattan real estate moguls maintained a commanding presence in the billionaires club in 2008, according to Forbes’ annual list.

Donald Trump fell from No. 314 in 2007 to 368 this year with a net worth of $3 billion. The founder of Related Companies, Stephen Ross, jumped from No.  read more »

Two years after the Related Companies was denied an attempt to bring the Cirque de Soleil to midtown, the Department of City Planning is seeking to change its regulations for development in part of the theater district.  read more »

Stephen Ross’s Related Companies is receiving an infusion of $1.4 billion from investors, including Goldman Sachs and investment firms from the Middle East, according to an article in today’s Wall Street Journal [subscription].

The firm is apparently now worth about $5 billion, the Journal tells us:  read more »

Probably never had so many of New York’s real estate elite crammed themselves into such a small space as happened Sunday afternoon at the press preview of proposals to develop the Western Rail Yards: Steve Roth, Stephen Ross, Jerry Speyer and his son Rob, Ric Clark, Gary Barnett, Steven Holl, Helmut Jahn and Rafael Pelli. S.I. Newhouse even dropped by, very casually dressed, as proof that if Mr. Roth’s bid won, he’d move Condé Nast west to 10th Avenue.

They all crammed themselves into a vacant storefront on West 43rd Street to show of their versions of New York’s future: towering buildings that will pack some 30,000 residents and workers into a six-square block area along the Hudson River, between 30th and 33rd streets. The architectural models themselves costs tens of thousands of dollars; the bids, submitted last month, ate up a few million, according to a number of developers.

Not surprisingly, the five teams talked a lot about how their particular plan creates a vibrant new neighborhood-- this, after all, is the retail version of the plans. No financials were disclosed, and the point is to try to curry favor with the public to create a popular favorite. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority--which, with the Bloomberg administration’s input, will choose the winner in the next few months--has got to pay more attention to how much money each team is offering, when they’d be able to pay it, and how likely they’d get it done.

“There are two or three of these that are done by teams that are really competent,” said Mr. Roth, “and in the end I think it's going to be the financial part of the deal that is going to differentiate them.”

Each of the plans profess to save the northern section of the High Line and promise to provide at least some affordable housing. The tallest buildings would stretch 1,000, 1,100, even 1,300 feet into the air. (The Empire State Building now clocks in at 1,250 feet.) The cost, according to a number of the developers, will likely come in between $10 billion to $20 billion, with completion anticipated in the early 2020’s

There were also plenty of wild and creative ideas, like, from Brookfield Properties, Diller Scofidio & Renfro's towers (pictured above) that are joined by a quarter-mile running track; mechanisms to reuse sullage for irrigation; patent-pending technology to create a better platform over the rail yards; a movie screen on which 20th Century Fox could premiere new films; and so on.

The exhibit of the five proposals, which includes architectural models, displays and videos, will be open to the public every day for the next two weeks, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., starting today (with the exception of Thanksgiving). The address is 335 Madison Avenue, although the storefront is really located at the northwest corner of 43rd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue. Comment cards will be available for visitors to give input.

The Real Estate will post synopses of the five designs throughout the day.  read more »

Here comes the Eighth Avenue boom crashing through the Theater District, with Stephen Ross’ Related Companies giddily leading the caravan.  read more »

Can the Time Warner Center developer and Related chairman put a friendlier face on the New York real estate industry?  read more »

Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff’s right-hand man in the unsuccessful bid to land the 2012 Olympics started work on Monday at the Related Companies, according to The New York Times. Jay L. Kriegel became a senior adviser to the firm and to its chairman and C.E.O., Stephen Ross. Mr. Ross is also chairman of the Real Estate Board of New York.

New Yorkers of a certain age may know Mr. Kriegel best by the role he played as an aide to Mayor John Lindsay in the Serpico police-corruption brouhaha of the early 1970's. Here's an excerpt from Time magazine in January 1972:

In earlier testimony in closed sessions, Mayoral Assistant Jay Kriegel, 31, whom Lindsay has called the "best staff man in America," had admitted going to the mayor in 1967 with the sordid details of police crime that Detective Frank Serpico and Sergeant David Durk had given him. By the testimony of Durk and Serpico, Kriegel came back to them to report that the Lindsay administration was concerned about possible ghetto rioting and did not want to upset the police.

In his latest appearance before the commission, Kriegel told a different story. He said this time that he had never given the mayor more than a general idea of the cops' charges and did not provide him with specifics. Nor, said Kriegel, had he ever told Durk and Serpico that the mayor was concerned about bothering the police by acting on corruption. But the two policemen have stuck to their version.

Mr. Kriegel eventually escaped threats of a perjury indictment.  read more »

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.)

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.