A couple of articles caught my eye today. First, a university which owns choice land on the Upper West Side of Manhattan:
For more than a decade, Fordham University officials have been trying to figure out how to address overcrowding at their Manhattan campus and fill the coffers of their relatively small endowment. They thought the answers to both could be found in one of their most valuable assets: their Manhattan real estate.
So for four years, Fordham officials have been trying to win support from community groups and city officials for plans to turn their four-building site into a far denser 12-building campus in the same space between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues and 60th and 62nd Streets. Fordham uses the site for various graduate programs and has a larger campus in the Bronx.
The completed campus next to Lincoln Center would have three million square feet of classrooms, libraries and dormitories. It would also include two lots that Fordham would sell to luxury apartment developers, using the profits to bolster the endowment. ...
Neighbors, zoning experts and community board members who spoke at the hearing expressed concerns that the buildings would be too tall and dense for the neighborhood. Howard Goldman, a land-use lawyer representing a residents’ group, Fordham Neighbors United, said that at three million square feet, the campus would be larger than the Time Warner Center nearby (2.2 million square feet) or the Empire State Building (2.8 million square feet).
Deirdre A. Carson, a lawyer representing Fordham, said the towers would not be as overbearing as critics contend. Some of the towers would be would be 650 feet high, she acknowledged, but they would be spread out over a larger area. She added that the Time Warner site was half the size of the proposed Fordham campus and that the Empire State site was one-third as large. ...
Mr. Goldfischer said that more than 1,100 residents were removed from the neighborhood to build Fordham, which he said complemented Moses’ original plan, as did Lincoln Center, nearby. (Lincoln Center has not commented on the proposal.)
“That land was for public trust,” he said over applause from the crowd. “It’s immoral, illegal and unethical to do something like that.”
Ms. Carson acknowledged that terms of the 1958 purchase included a requirement that the property be used for educational purposes but said the obligation expired in 2006.
and a foreign airline which owns a VERY choice block in midtown Manhattan is realizing that they have a major cash cow which can bear them an awesome amount of milk, forever:
He said that the government may revisit the earlier decision to place the Roosevelt hotel under the Privatization Commission so as to examine the possibility of developing the property for regular income.
How choice? The NY Post estimated the selling value of this one-acre whole-block property at $400 million to $1.2 billion as a teardown last summer. That's $20 million to $60 million per year in land rent. See these previous LVTfan entries to this blog.
And then there was a 3rd article, whose mechanics I don't begin to understand, but which I suspect are similar ... and a bit hedge-fundish: The New York Times, which in 2007 built a new building between 40th and 41st Street on the west side, is now negotiating a transaction which, by definition, must benefit both sides... I'm led to wonder how much it will cost taxpayers if both sides benefit:
The New York Times Company is in advanced negotiations to sell a substantial portion of its 52-story headquarters building on Eighth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan to W. P. Carey & Company, an investment and management firm that specializes in so-called sale-leaseback transactions, the newspaper company confirmed on Thursday.
Under the deal, the Times Company would sell the 19 floors it currently uses in the building but not the 6 floors it leases to other tenants. The Times Company would continue to occupy and manage its floors and would have the right to buy back the space at a predetermined price when a 10-year lease expires. Designed by the architect Renzo Piano, the building stretches from 40th to 41st Street. It was completed in 2007.
A spokeswoman for the Times Company, Catherine J. Mathis, declined to say how much W. P. Carey would pay for the space, what it would cost to repurchase it or what the rent would be. The Times Company previously said that it was pursuing a sale-leaseback arrangement for up to $225 million and would use the proceeds to repay some of the company’s long-term debt.
“Because we are in continuing discussions, we cannot comment on the status of the sale-leaseback,” Ms. Mathis said Thursday. Guy B. Lawrence, a spokesman for W. P. Carey, declined comment on the discussions.
The Times Company owns 58 percent of the 1.5-million-square-foot tower. The developer Forest City Ratner owns the rest of the building. Forest City’s portion will not be included in the sale.
In a sale-leaseback transaction, the seller maintains control over its space and the responsibility for paying taxes, maintenance and utility costs. W. P. Carey’s investors would be guaranteed a specific return for the life of the lease.
Addendum .... see http://seekingalpha.com/article/115827-inside-the-new-york-times-billionaire-bailout
The question, of course, for all three stories, is WHO IS ENTITLED TO THE LAND RENT? Land rent is the annual value of an undeveloped piece of land. It is created by the community, by public spending, by our presence .... and we permit -- even honor* -- its privatization by whoever owns the land. We take it for granted. They take it for granted.
This is stupid on our part. (How's that for understatement?)
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