WITH best and final bids for Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village due next Monday, the suitors are now required to submit a plan for how they plan to treat current residents of the 11,000-apartment housing complex.
“They want to know how the residents will be treated,” advised one executive who asked not to be identified.
“They want to know what will make the tenants comfortable, and how they will be protected to show that MetLife didn’t forget them going out the door.”
These plans could also be used to stop the City Council from implementing any bills to halt the sale of the two sprawling projects.
The tenants group is also bidding, so no one can say they weren’t given every chance to come up with the big bucks.
Bidders must also submit to the CB Richard Ellis marketing team the signed contract along with their all-cash bids, presumably so the winner of this likely $5 billion-plus deal can be quickly anointed.
A team from Jones Lang LaSalle is also helping MetLife review the bids.
It also appears that none of the bidders have been told how many made it into the second round, which is making for lively discussions throughout the real estate community.
While the group to beat remains Apollo with ING Clarion, Dermot Company and Ramius Capital, remember that Dubai’s Istithmar is pumping dollars into this city faster than water, and partner Andrew Farkas once headed a company that ran the complex for MetLife.
Those Dubuyers could simply write a check for $6 billion and outplay the rest of the survivors.
Vornado’s partner, Qatar, is also oil rich, while Related Companies is the largest owner of apartments across the nation.
The short list now appears to also include the Kushner Companies, the family company once headed by Charles Kushner, which just last week admitted to turning down bids of more than $2 billion for a portion of its own Jersey portfolio.
Now it appears they will sell it, but only to fund a winning bid for the Lower Manhattan middle-class enclave.
Son Jared recently bought the New York Observer and continues to invest in Upper Manhattan middle-market residential.
Another possible bidder, Toy Center owner Joseph Chetrit, was said to have plopped down a $5 billion all-cash bid last week, a move that made MetLife “uncomfortable.”
That’s because Chetrit bought Chicago’s Sears Tower from the insurance giant last year, and those office tenants have since been giving an earful to Snoopy’s friends.
Other investors being tossed about the churning groups include Barclays, Carlyle Group, Archstone-Smith, any local that invests for others, and any fund that ends in Capital. “There are strange bedfellows out there,” laughed one exec.
*
High-end body-care company L’Occitane is joining the Times Square lineup.
“They are already international and are finally hitting the nucleus of the universe,” said Kim Mogull, CEO of Mogull Realty, who represented 1600 Broadway on behalf of Jeffrey Katz‘s Sherwood Equities.
L’Occitane, which was also repped by Mogull, leased about 1,000 square feet next to the lobby of the new residential condo tower on Broadway between 48th and 49th.
Meanwhile, Starbucks will take just about 1,500 feet on the north side of L’Occitane.
David Firestein of Northwest Atlantic Partners represents the coffee lifestyle company whose founder, Harold Schultz, is a Canarsie boy.
They will both join the building’s anchor tenant, M&M’s World, which is hoping to open its candy shop in time for the Macy’s parade.