Commodore Hotel Redevelopment

The Commodore Hotel at 42^nd Street and Lexington Avenue in the Upper East Side was completed in 1919 as part of Terminal City, a complex of hotels and office buildings connected to Grand Central Station. Owned by the New York Central Railroad, the building was leased to the Bowman-Biltmore Hotels Corp. and designed by Warren & Wetmore, the same firm that designed Grand Central Terminal.

After its doors opened in 1919, the Commodore boasted the “Most Beautiful Lobby in the World” — a single, open space with low ceilings and a waterfall designed by John B. Smeraldi. With its glass roof, plastered walls, decorative plants and indirect light, the lobby transported guests to a Mediterranean courtyard – unlike the elaborate and expensive decorative programs seen in most New York hotels of the time.

The hotel was successful until the late 1970s, when Central Railroad — renamed The Penn Central Transportation Co. — went bankrupt and sold the Commodore to a young Donald Trump in 1977. Seeking to rescue the aging hotel from bankruptcy and foreclosure, Trump orchestrated one of the most famous real estate deals in New York City history. With the Hyatt Corp. as partner, the Trump Organization purchased the Commodore and negotiated a contract for a 40-year tax abatement provided by the city’s Urban Development Corp.

Trump and Hyatt decided to rebuild the hotel, completely gutting the first few floors and covering the entire exterior with a mirrored glass façade as part of a $100 million renovation. With its signature sleek, mirrored glass exterior, the new Grand Hyatt signaled the revival of New York after the fiscal crisis of the 1970s and is often credited with turning around the deterioration of the Grand Central area – a neighborhood that, at the time, was threatened by multiple foreclosures.

Today, the newly renovated 32-story hotel is owned entirely by the Hyatt Corp.; Trump sold his interest for $140 million in 1996, ending a tumultuous 17-year partnership between the two firms.

An Assistant Corporation Counsel at the time, Leonard Grunstein helped negotiate the financeable ground lease structure that permitted the Trump Organization’s redevelopment of The Commodore. In addition, Grunstein was involved in coordinating the closing of the acquisition, working with all of the financing partners, the MTA (including in connection with construction and other easements), the UDC and other city agencies.

Pier 57 Redevelopment | Len Grunstein Acts as Financial Consultant

Three years after a fire destroyed the original pier at West 15^th Street in 1947, workers broke ground on a new structure – now known as Pier 57 – that still stands today just south of Chelsea Piers.

With fire safety in mind, the new pier’s foundation was made of concrete instead of wood. In 1954, Popular Mechanics touted the structure as a “Superpier” for its innovative design, which consisted of three hollow concrete boxes that could support almost the entire weight of the pier.

Built in a manmade lake next to the river, all three boxes were more than 300 feet long and weighed upwards of 20,000 tons. In July 1952, the first box was floated down the Hudson. Construction progressed quickly — despite an explosion and fire that killed two workers in March 1953 — and concluded in December 1954 with the pier’s opening ceremony.

To this day, Pier 57 remains the only pier in New York City built on floating concrete boxes. It was eventually sold to the MTA in 1969 and served as a garage and maintenance facility until 2003. In 2004, it earned the nickname, “Little Guantanamo on the Hudson,” after the NYPD used it as a holding pen for Republican National Convention protesters.

In 2012, Young Woo & Associates announced plans to redevelop Pier 57 with retail, restaurant, and other commercial spaces. The new shopping center, designed by LOT-EK, will include an “interactive marketplace” built with recycled shipping containers and will reflect the nearby Meatpacking District’s industrial, gritty feel. In addition to shopping, the new pier will be a cultural hub, with the public rooftop park serving as the permanent home of the Tribeca Film Festival.

Approved by City Council in April, the project was subject to environmental review by state and federal agencies and required approval under the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. Leonard Grunstein, who acted as a financial consultant for the project, helped negotiate the financing structure for the redevelopment, enabling the project to move forward with plans to begin construction in October and eventually open its doors in the spring of 2015.

UDC/ Hotel St. George & Subway Improvement Project

Built in 1885 at the former site of an inn with the same name, the Hotel St. George in Brooklyn Heights was transformed from a 130-room, 10-story building to a sprawling, multi-building complex by the 1930s. William Tumbridge, an English-born sailor who made his fortune on Wall Street as an advertising executive, originally owned the hotel.

Under Tumbridge’s tenure, which ended with his death in 1921, the hotel underwent several expansions – from the modest 130 rooms on Pineapple Street to more than 1,000 rooms by the turn of the century. Determined to compete with his counterparts across the East River, Tumbridge did not invest solely in property; he made his hotel one of the first to have electricity and an air-conditioned dining room. It also featured an indoor swimming pool.

In 1922, Tumbridge’s family sold the hotel to Bing & Bing, a luxury real estate developer known for its “stately, spacious apartments” and “elegantly detailed buildings.” Much like Tumbridge, the new owners quickly expanded, completing a new 31-story tower in 1930 that added another 1,400 rooms to the St. George and made it the largest hotel in New York.

In order to accommodate the ever-growing number of guests, the Bings needed more room and hired architect Emery Roth to design an addition over the subway stop at Clark Street in 1924. Despite the hotel’s expansion, the Bings sold the hotel in 1953.

In the 1960s, the Kennard Hospitality Hotel Group, which had purchased the St. George from Bing & Bing, was accused of neglecting the property. Over the next decade, the hotel fell further into disrepair as the rest of the city struggled in the midst of a deep financial crisis.

No longer operating as a hotel, the building’s lobby was redeveloped by the Urban Development Corp. in the early 1980s into the Clark Street station of the IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue line. As a state agency, the UDC was exempt from paying taxes. Nonetheless, the agency required private developers involved in the project to pay an amount in lieu of sales taxes to then be used to fund public benefit projects in the community.

As an Assistant Corporation Counsel, Leonard Grunstein negotiated the financeable ground lease and structure that enabled redevelopment and conversion of the Hotel into residential apartment units, employing an analogue to J-51 tax abatement and exemption as the model for the in lieu of real estate tax payments.

The Redevelopment of the Brighton Beach Baths

The Brighton Beach Baths were founded in the mid-19th century and quickly became a popular destination for local residents and vacationers. Suffering from a shrinking membership caused by competition from developments outside of the city, the Brooklyn neighborhood and its once bustling boardwalk were neglected for decades.

In 1955, however, Brooklyn developer Alexander Muss acquired 21 acres facing the Brighton Beach boardwalk, including the Brighton Beach Baths. Eventually renamed the Brighton Beach Bath and Racquet Club, Alexander Muss & Sons continued to operate the club, adding steam rooms, hot showers, a miniature golf course and tennis courts.

In the late 1980s, Muss’s son, Stephen, announced plans to replace the Racquet Club with a six-building housing development called Brighton by the Sea. The project was stalled for years by a lengthy land-use review process and opposition from local officials and members of the community. In 1998, frustrated with the complications, Alexander Muss & Sons sold the property title to Muss Development, a separate branch of the Muss family business.

Muss Development revised the plan, expanding the scope of the project to include 16 buildings. With an expected 2014 completion date, more than 50 percent of the units have already been sold. In addition to its popularity with tenants, the development has been lauded for its positive effects on the Brighton Beach neighborhood, raising property values and creating jobs.

Leonard Grunstein worked with the Muss family on the redevelopment of the Brighton Beach Baths property. Combining sometimes-esoteric forms of common ownership, Mr. Grunstein drafted a plan that permitted the phased condominium development structure of the property.

The Muss family, which has been building in New York City since 1906 and has developed more than 15 million square feet of real estate, was responsible for high-profile projects such as Forest Hills Tower in Queens and the Marriott Hotel in Downtown Brooklyn.

Leonard Grunstein Helps Negotiate Parkchester Redevelopment

The Bronx’s sprawling Parkchester community, once thought of as a “planning phenomenon” during its development in the late 1930s and 40s, served as an early model for Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village and Riverton Houses.

The Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. initially proposed the 171-building “city-within-a-city” during the 1939 New York World’s Fair, which was later completed in 1942 despite building restrictions during World War II. The development, which takes its name from the nearby Park Versailles and Westchester Heights neighborhoods, was the largest “privately built planned community” upon its completion and quickly became a haven for returning veterans and their families.

The Helmsley Organization purchased Parkchester in 1968 and subsequently converted it into separate condominiums during the 70s and 80s. However, the development later fell into a state of neglect and disrepair, desperately in need of millions of dollars worth of rehabilitation.

Lacking the necessary funds for a major revitalization effort, the condominiums turned to the Community Preservation Corp. (CPC) to help finance redevelopment of the complex. This rehabilitation project cost more than $250 million and included large-scale projects such as the installation of more than 65,000 new windows, the electrical re-wiring of all 12,271 units, and the redevelopment of commercial spaces.

Working with the CPC and developers Morton Olshan and Jeremiah O’Connor, Leonard Grunstein negotiated the acquisition and created the unique financing device that enabled redevelopment.

As a result, Parkchester is once again a thriving neighborhood appealing to moderate- and middle income families, drawing residents with its wide, tree-lined walkways, green spaces, and playgrounds. Once largely Eastern European and Irish Catholic, the complex’s affordable prices have attracted middle- and working-class ethnic minorities from the West Indies, Latin America, and East and South Asia.