Forest City Enterprises Inc.

Forest City Ratner sent out a press release on Thursday saying that the former Ward Bread Bakery at Pacific and Vanderbilt streets in Prospect Heights was next in line for the Atlantic Yards treatment, with abatement and demolition scheduled to begin Monday.

But don't cry too hard, because the building, the target of an unsuccessful landmarking attempt, will come back in its next life as an insect or something: Some 75 percent of the demolition debris will be recycled.  read more »

The full release after the jump.

- Matthew Schuerman

In some ways, the Yards, a $2 billion, 6-million-square foot development in southeastern Washington, D.C., sounds a lot like the all-too-familiar Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. Each is being undertaken by a branch of the same company, Forest City Enterprises, but in the District of Columbia, the Washington Post reports,

Its plans call for preserving the historic buildings and turning a boilermaker shop into a retail area, creating apartments from a former carpentry building and converting an old gun mount factory into condominiums.

(Via NoLandGrab.)

- Matthew Schuerman

• The duplex penthouse atop the new Astor Place Sculpture For Living has full views, 4,400 square feet, and every detail (down to the white marble bathroom) done by Charles Gwathmey Himself. So why has it still not sold? Maybe because it's $12 million, or because there's no on-site fitness center (like at the new One Kenmark Square, right). (New York Post)
• Ratner recap: The Bruce gets $60.8 million in cash, plus 3.9 million units of stock, from his pals at Forest City Enterprises. Sweet deal, right? Yet in return he hands over his 30% stake in Forest City Ratner to FCE, which means saying goodbye to 30 enormous properties--including Atlantic Yards and the new Renzo Piano Times HQ. Matthew Schuerman explains: it's all about philanthropy. (Crain's)
• Midtown is so hot right now. First came posh condos, then a "second" Times Square on 38th, and now a fancy salad joint on Park and 51st. It's all the (hormonal) rage with young investment bankers, who head there "for the dressings and the girls, basically." (New York)
• The New York Law School gets immeasurably cooler, dropping $190 million to double its Tribeca campus. Its new 200,000-square-foot building--nine stories, four beneath ground--will be open for very hip studying in 2008. (Crain's)
• The New York Times summarizes the Best Borough in a single artful sentiment: "The smell of death everywhere, so thick and strong it makes eyes water, and yet the curious will line up around the corner for a look. Ah, Brooklyn!" (New York Times)
- Max Abelson  read more »
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Neither the New York- nor the Cleveland-based branches of the family has explained why Bruce Ratner is selling the remaining 30 percent of his company, Forest City Ratner, to his cousins at Forest City Enterprises, and why at such an opportune time. (The final deal was announced today.) One equity analyst said the company had told him that it was personal.

"What happened was that Bruce was getting to the point in his life where he wants to do some philanthropy," Rich Moore, managing director at RBC Capital Markets, told us. "There is no liquidity to joint ventures because he has to sell a building in order to make any money."

In return, Ratner is getting $60.8 million to play around with, a 3.9 percent stake in Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises, as well as a seat on the parent company's board of directors.

Since last Thursday's after-close announcement, the cousin company's stock price has fallen about $4.

-Matthew Schuerman

Bruce Ratner is selling the remainder of his real estate holdings to parent company Forest City Enterprises for $60 million in cash plus a stake in the new holding partnership. (FCE had previously owned a "majority" stake in Forest City Ratner.) NoLandGrab, the opposition blog, thinks this is a sign of Ratner's desperate financial straits, but whatever the reason, investors are neither impressed nor frightened. The parent company's stock is up just a few cents since the announcement was made after the market's closing last night. -Matthew Schuerman