The Related Companies

Governor Paterson said today that his administration has asked the developers of the planned redevelopment of Pennsylvania Station to come back with a new plan, showing the first public sign of life in the project in months.

In a Q&A on WCBS radio, Mr. Paterson was asked about the status of the long-delayed project, known as Moynihan Station.

"We have asked the developers of the potential Moynihan Station to come back to us with another plan that particularly features the subject we've been talking about today--transportation," Mr. Paterson said. "Already we have addressed with them the dwindling supply of revenues that we as the state can put into the plan, and we're expecting an answer form them within a week or two.  read more »

Portfolio has a profile of Related Companies chairman Steve Ross today, and along with it, a video of the magazine's real estate forum at the Four Seasons last month, where Joanne Lipman, Portfolio's editor, queried—somewhat awkwardly, at times—Mr. Ross, Vornado chairman Steve Roth, and Elliman superbroker Dolly Lenz.

(For more on Mr. Ross, we have an unrelated story on Related and a West Side tower in today's print edition.)

Stephen Ross apparently is rather intent on getting a development bonus for a new far West Side tower.

Mr. Ross, chairman of development giant the Related Companies, is seeking, once again, to fill the base of a planned 58-story, 1.2 million-square-foot hotel and residential building on 42nd Street and 10th Avenue with a theater, thereby taking advantage of a zoning code bonus that allows for a bigger tower overhead.

Related, which met opposition in 2005 when it tried to bring Cirque du Soleil to the tower, is now in advanced talks with the Signature Theater Company to be the main theatrical tenant in the tower, according to people familiar with discussions.  read more »

The Related Companies has boosted the title (and workload, presumably) of Vishaan Chakrabarti, project manager for the Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust on Moynihan Station.

Mr. Chakrabarti, formerly a senior vice president, has been named Executive Vice President of Design and Planning. He will continue to lead the Moynihan Station effort, according to a Related spokeswoman.

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In case there was any doubt, Steve Roth and Steve Ross really want Madison Square Garden to move.

This morning, some 13 weeks after Madison Square Garden announced it was renovating and staying in place (i.e. not moving), the developer duo professed, once again, their eagerness to see the Paterson administration pick up the ball and move forward with the large-scale Moynihan Station plan. The plan, in its most recent iteration, would involve the state using Port Authority money intended for regional transportation projects to buy the Garden and its air rights from the Dolan family—that is, if they’re willing to sell (the Dolans have expressed no interest and are moving forward with the renovation).  read more »

Location: On the rail yards, how did News Corp. tell you that they were no longer interested in being an anchor tenant?

Mr. Blau: There were several rounds, and they [the M.T.A.] called us in for what they said was the final round. We had hoped, or thought, that we would be designated at this meeting, which was to happen the next day; and literally 12 hours before the meeting, we got a call from News Corp. that said while they were very, very interested in the site, they couldn’t agree to commit at that moment.  read more »

When Madison Square Garden unceremoniously announced on March 27, via late-afternoon calls to reporters, that it was moving forward on a renovation of its arena, it seemed to be the death blow to the planned redevelopment of Pennsylvania Station and the surrounding area. The Garden, led by chairman James Dolan, was exhausted with the lack of progress in a slow-moving, state-led plan to remake and expand the station, to be called Moynihan Station, which required the Garden’s moving to a new arena in the neighboring Farley Post Office.  read more »

Now it's really official: the M.T.A. board this afternoon voted to approve a deal with the Related Companies and Goldman Sachs to develop over the 26-acre West Side rail yards.

A few nuggets of rail yards info from the meeting: According to M.T.A. CFO Gary Dellaverson, who summarized negotiations to the board, the key to the Related Companies' victory was its willingness to literally pick up the $1.054 billion Tishman Speyer deal and sign it, only inserting one notable change.  read more »

Stephen Ross must be Mayor Bloomberg’s best friend in the world right now.

The bulk of the so-called mega-projects around the city are in shambles or facing major hurdles; the term “lame duck mayor” has been popping up with increasing frequency around City Hall; and the city’s economic outlook remains bleak for some time to come.  read more »

The storyline behind Related’s surprise win in the West Side rail yards bidding goes, more or less, as follows, according to a Monday afternoon press conference with M.T.A. officials and Related Chairman Stephen Ross:

Back in the late winter, when a round of bids was due to the M.T.A., executives at News Corp. gave Related Companies a call within 24 hours of the bid deadline, announcing that the company would not commit to becoming an anchor tenant in Related's bid as it had previously indicated. With little time to think before its bid was due, and at a time when Bear Stearns was collapsing, Related backed out of its full bid, hoping to hang on to a partial deal for the western half of the rail yards.  read more »

It’s official: Jumping back from the collapse of a deal with Tishman Speyer Properties, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is going with Stephen Ross’ Related Companies to develop the West Side rail yards, Manhattan’s largest remaining parcel of developable land.

As we first reported last night, Related snapped up the deal from the M.T.A. less than a week after it abandoned talks with Tishman Speyer. Tishman—apparently scared off by the tremendous risk involved in developing with no anchor tenant, a parcel in need of rezoning and an inclement lending market—tried to change the terms of the deal to lessen its risk at the last minute.

In a release from the M.T.A., it seems the agency gave Related, in a partnership with Goldman Sachs, an option to have more time to build before they start making rent payments if the developer so chooses, allowing the team to defer payments for two years.

The deal is very similar to the Tishman proposal in terms of finances, pegged at $1.054 billion in net present value.  read more »

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has reached a tentative deal to award development rights for the West Side rail yards to the Related Companies, according to a person familiar with discussions. The deal for the 26-acre site on Manhattan’s West Side comes less than a week after the M.T.A. broke off talks for the property with Tishman Speyer, the major development firm that was announced the winning bidder in late March.  read more »

With Tishman Speyer out of the picture at the West Side rail yards, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is now headed back to the other three bidding teams (Extell Development, the Related Companies, and a joint venture of the Durst Organization and Vornado Realty Trust); that is, if they’re still interested.

The apparent frontrunner, given that it was the runner-up to Tishman in the original bidding, would be Durst/Vornado, the only remaining team in late March with an anchor tenant, S.I. Newhouse’s Condé Nast. If Condé Nast is no longer on board with a move—The Times has reported that Tishman failed to woo them in recent weeks—that could mean trouble for the Durst/Vornado bid, or certainly the value of it.  read more »

No one ever said planning for a train station was cheap.

In a recent filing with the SEC, Vornado Realty Trust wrote off $23 million associated with the “abandonment” of the so-called Moynihan East portion of the Penn Station redevelopment plan.

Taken with planning for the expansion of the station into the Farley Post Office across the street, Vornado, led by Steve Roth, has spent $34.2 million, according to the filing:

The three months ended March 31, 2008 includes a $34,200,000 write-off for our share of two joint ventures’ pre-development costs, of which $23,000,000 represents our 50% share of costs in connection with the abandonment of the “arena move”/Moynihan East portions of the Farley project.

Given that Vornado is in a 50/50 partnership with the Related Companies for the project, the numbers reported by Vornado suggest that the two companies have spent nearly $70 million on the project since they were designated developers in 2005!  read more »

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 »

Last night, NBC threw a party to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Network bigwigs, including Jeff Zucker and Phil Griffin, turned out to toast their top cable-news anchor, who at one point during the night posed for pictures wearing a sparkling tiara.

The party was thrown at the Landmarc restaurant at the Time Warner Center.  read more »

With final bids due Friday for the proposed redevelopment of Hudson River Park’s Pier 40, the West Village community seems all but too eager to shut the door on Related Companies' proposed park and waterside entertainment complex. Instead, many seem to be opting for a community plan that mostly preserves the giant working pier-turned-parking lot and ball field complex while still generating enough money to survive.

Not that Related isn’t trying to be loved.  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 »