Clash of the Utopias: Tishman Speyer, BlackRock and the $5.4 billion Battle for Stuyvesant Town

In this week’s New York Magazine, I report on the unfolding meltdown of the biggest real-estate deal in American history. In 2006, Tishman Speyer and BlackRock bought Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village for $5.4 billion. It was the highest price ever paid for a single real-estate transaction. Now, the deal is being buffeted by a cratering market, crushing leverage and a brewing feud with thousands of rent-stabilized tenants.

From the piece:

But by 2006, the sun seemed to be setting on the middle class in Manhattan. The blasting real-estate scene gave a whole new meaning to “market rate” apartments, and fewer and fewer people in the city believed in rent stabilization as a core value. The complex seemed a kind of anachronism—and, to the Speyers, a huge opportunity. To start with, the phrase “80 acres of Manhattan” is, to real-estate men like Rob Speyer and his father, a talismanic incantation. But it was more than just the acreage. Rob had a vision. He believed that by adding amenities and remodeling apartments—and forcing out longtime tenants who held on to their apartments in violation of rent-stabilization law—they could make Stuy Town hospitable to the new armies that were increasingly populating Manhattan, the recent college graduates with jobs in marketing and finance who worked long hours and wanted a full-service experience (including even a putting green).

Read the full piece HERE