BY LOIS WEISS

May 17, 2010 11 am also Tweeted earlier at www.twitter.com/loisweiss

BUILDING EMPLOYEE UNION MOVING

SEIU Local 32-BJ Heading to LADIES MILE

The building Service Employees International Union local 32-bj is falling into the Gap. The union which represents doormen and porters signed a deal to move to 283,162 feet at 620 Avenue of the Americas in the Ladies Mile shopping district. The 20-year deal encompasses space on the 4th, 5th, 6th and part of the 7th floor. Some was previously the Gap offices. Due to automation, technology and a better way of doing business, the union will be moving out of 414,000 square feet at 101 Avenue of the Americas on the edge of Hudson Square/Soho. The current lease ends at the end of 2011 in the building owned by Edward Minskoff. The union's long search, headed by Mark Weiss and Rob Eisenberg at Newmark Knight Frank, even had the union put in what was a losing a bid for the former AIG headquarters building Downtown. "This is a better economic deal for them," said Weiss who is not related to me. "This was an intricate, complicated deal." The new headquarters is in the office building that also houses the stores for Bed Bath & Beyond, TJ Maxx and Filene's Basement among others. The offices previously housed the Gap offices and architects HOK. The building is owned by a group that includes the Chetrits, Yair Levy and Bonjour Capital and was represented by a Cushman & Wakefield team headed by Mitch Konsker and Matt Astrachan with Jonathan Tootell. "They look at themselves as trustees of the money," said Weiss of the union leadership. "They really cared about making a better place for the membership." The union will have its own lobby, elevators, mechanicals and a brand new auditorium for membership meetings. SL Green Realty Corp. execs played a key roll in smoothing over the differences in the previously feuding owners group to get the deal completed. SLG is a lender on the property. The owners had earlier been trying to sell a rear parking lot that would have decreased the value of the building and possibly interfeered with loading docks. New zoning lot descriptions and mortgages now reflect the ownership of the lot and allowed a new Bank of Amercia mortgage to be secured in February for $235 million.

Lois@BetweentheBricks.com ,

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much older stuff below An investor group led by Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp. has signed a contract to buy the old Knickerbocker Hotel at 6 Times Square and the development site next door for approximately $180 million, Between The Bricks has learned. Owned by Dubai's financially troubled Istithmar which paid a total of $376 million, the properties are being foreclosed and sold by Danske Bank through Jones Lang LaSalle. The landmarked hotel at the southeast corner of Broadway and W. 42nd St is nearly vacant but for the Gap store. Ashkenazy is led by Ben Ashkenazy and Michael Alpert who also own 650 Madison Avenue and the Barney's retail condo on Madison Avenue. Sources said they won the hotly contested deal over many groups, including locals and overseas. No one returned calls and emails for comment. "You have the history of the building as office and hospitality and there are many uses," said a source familiar with their thinking. Danske inherited the Lehman Brothers loan for $290 million which had been paid down to around $220 million. The information was first reported by Lois Weiss in a Tweet on March 18, 2010 and reported as a Brief in the New York Post on March 19th. March 27, 2009

contact and some older info below

Lois@BetweenTheBricks.com

January 12, 2001

Property Tax Roll Released

The city quietly released the 2001/02 tentative assessed valuations today. Although the printed books won't be on the counter until Tuesday, January 16, owners can quickly look up their new tentative assessed values today by going to this link: http://nycserv.nyclink.org:80/nycproperty/nynav/jsp/choseassess.jsp

You must have your block and lot available. To see the new AVs, then choose the list from January 15, 2001.

If you don't have your block and lot and own an office building or a residential building that was recently for sale or had a store for rent, and have access to CoStar, you may be able to find it by choosing the "Listings" tab.

My secret, middle of the night method to get block and lots:

Call the Buildings Department BIS system at 212 312 8467 from a fax phone. Don't jump the choices here and be methodical in punching the buttons because the machine is very sensitive and will simply tell you it's "sorry you are having trouble, goodbye."

One option is to punch in the house number and street name, ask for a fax of the "overview," and the fax will come back to you with the borough block and lot number. Don't be surprised if it also tells you there are outstanding violations on the building - even if it's a vacant lot. Hey, at least you can clean those up too.

Please e mail info to: Lois@BetweenTheBricks.com

All sources are always and forever, confidential.

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Giuliani drops co-op tax relief plan

A plan to completely overhall co-op and condo property taxes has been ditched by the Giuliani administration...continued

More see below

way below...