The 25,000 tenants occupying nearly 12,000 apartment units of Peter Copper Village and Stuyvesant Town are safe for now. Earlier this year its owner Tishman Speyer defaulted on its loan payments making the property available in discounted bond pieces for a number of interested buyers. It was assumed that those companies would then foreclose the property and converting the apartment units into luxury co-op apartments.
In 2006 Tishman Speyers made the largest single real estate purchase of one of the largest housing complexes in the United States spending 5.4 billion dollars on the 80-acre complex. Three years later the epic deal that Tishman Speyers induced will be seen as a blunder as Fox Business News reports that the property is worth less than half of the 5.4 billion spent.
The fate of Stuytown and Peter Cooper Village are in the hands of one man; New York State Supreme Court Justice Richard Lowe. Over the upcoming weeks he will decide the fate of the case Bank of America NA et al v. PSW NYC LLC, New York State Supreme Court, New York County, No. 651293/2010. The case in a nutshell is between the tenant associations in Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village and Bank of America who is now the majority holder of the bonds sold by Tishman Speyers. According to the tenant rights association the foreclosure of Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village would likely mean a new management company taking full control on the properties and converting the unites into purchase only apartments.
The possibility of loosing their apartment unit is of great concern to many of Stuyvesant Towns residents especially if the complex is purchased by a group other then the tenants association. Kevin Shields has been a rent stabilized resident at Stuyvesant Town for over 20 years “ I have not been to pleased with the management of Tishman Speyers, ever since they started owning and managing the property there has been pressure to get the rent stabilized tenants out and bring in new higher paying renters”. It is this pressure that has caused such friction between the renters and the management groups. If the property does go Co-op then all renters would be offered a lower than net value price to purchase there unit. The deal for the space may be tempting says Kevin but because it is illegal to evict rent stabilized tenants it might just be smarter to continue renting.
As a tenant at Stuyvesant Town I felt the need to speak to someone with legitimate information about what may happen in the future with my space. After making several phone calls a day for the majority of the past week I was unable to speak to one of the property managers. During my fourth and final day of calling Stuy-Towns management office there secretary advised me that there manager was unable to answer questions in till the recent court cases were settled, the secretary who preferred to remain anonymous would not comment on the current situation and would not give me any information regarding my rights as a current tenant, he did though advise me to check out the tenant rights association online sight to learn more information. At this current point and time Stuy-towns Management Company is at a stand still with information in till the recent court cases are decided.
It could be as soon as several days to as long as a month before we hear Justice Richard Lowe decision of the current lawsuit Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. Once that decision is made though the question of who will buy and operate the complex next must be asked. As tenants wait in anticipation and management groups take out there checkbooks the future of one of the nations largest apartment complexes is still very much unknown.
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