Commercial Observer

Prime Residential acquired the 132-unit complex in the Miracle Mile neighborhood for $51.3 million. An LLC tied to Studio City-based Harrison Properties sold the property at 740 South Burnside Avenue, named Palm Court Apartments, for approximately $388,000 per unit. Marcus & Millichap’s Jeff Louks, Gayle Factor and Elliot Sabag represented the seller, while Matt Ziegler procured the buyer. Ziegler said the seller recently completed extensive upgrades to the property.

Columbia University is adding a new student housing project to its dormitory portfolio in Manhattan. Sam Charney’s Charney Companies sold its more than 300-unit project at 99 Claremont Avenue in Morningside Heights to the Ivy League university for $122 million, a source close to the deal confirmed. The Real Deal first reported the deal.

On a humid and rainy July night in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, people from throughout the commercial real estate industry escaped the elements at the new mixed-use complex MADE Bush Terminal, which hosted Commercial Observer’s annual summer networking mixer.

Time to rise and grind, Upper East Siders, as a new coffee shop and bakery is set to open at Avenues Equity Partners’ 1410 Madison Avenue in Carnegie Hill. Family-owned coffee shop and bakery Cafe Aroma has taken 2,200 square feet of retail space at the base of the five-story residential building, according to landlord broker Meridian Capital Group.

Third-party logistics provider Highline Commerce is expanding its industrial footprint at Brooklyn’s Industry City for the second time in four years, Commercial Observer has learned. Highline’s lease renewal at 67 34th Street in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood tacked on another 18,000 square feet to its warehouse space. The five-year deal rounds out the company’s total footprint at the mixed-use commercial campus to 60,000 square feet.

A joint venture between Somerset Development and HIG Capital has sealed a $60 million loan to refinance a repurposed New Jersey mixed-use office campus that will soon be home to sandwich chain Jersey’s Mike’s headquarters, Commercial Observer has learned.

Bentley Zhao’s New Empire Corporation, a New York City-based developer of residential mixed-use buildings, dropped $33.5 million to acquire a Midtown parking garage at 10 East 30th Street, according to a deed filed in property records on Thursday. The purchase, made through the entity Rolls Yacht Tower Management, follows an application filed by the developer last week with the New York City Department of Buildings to demolish the seven-story, 48,500-square-foot garage.

Midwood Group has landed $50 million of construction financing to build a multifamily project in Brooklyn, Commercial Observer has learned. Ponce Bank supplied the loan for the ground-up development of two contiguous apartment buildings with 99 units each at 937 East 108th Street and 951 East 108th Street in Brooklyn’s Canarsie neighborhood.

The New York City Rent Guidelines Board’s decision to impose the first-ever two-year freeze on rent-stabilized apartments raises a simple question: Why commission months of economic research if you’re going to ignore it? Or put another way: If the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) ignores its own data, why do we need the board? SEE ALSO: NYC Council Approves Monitor Point and Six Other Housing Developments That is not a rhetorical question. It goes to the heart of why the RGB was created.

Stephen Rosenberg’s Greystone Real Estate Capital continues its equity push into U.S. affordable housing. Commercial Observer can first report that Greystone Real Estate Capital closed its second affordable housing fund — Greystone Affordable Housing Fund II — securing $137 million of Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) financing from several investors to support the development and preservation of nearly 2,000 affordable housing units across 20 properties in nine states.