No Con-Do

I suppose it should come as no surprise that in this potentially shrinking housing market no developer wanted to take a chance on building on top of a jail:

An eyebrow-raising plan to build luxury apartments, office space or even a hotel alongside the unpopular Brooklyn House of Detention to make it blend in better with the trendy neighborhood has been scrapped for lack of interest.

The city floated the novel idea this spring as a way to tamp down widespread community outrage over plans to reopen and expand the jail, which has been shuttered since 2003.

But this month, city officials acknowledged the ambitious plan died because developers just didn’t bite.

“We’re disappointed, but we’re not surprised,” said Angela Ferrante, the head of a coalition of local groups fighting the jail reopening. Ferrante attended a Jan. 2 briefing on responses to the city’s Request for Expressions of Interest issued in May.

“It always seemed like a long shot that a developer would want to built right next to a prison,” she added, though luxury condos already have gone up across the street.

Correction Commissioner Martin Horn told advocates at the meeting there was only one response — from a developer who wanted to tear down the existing jail, which wasn’t part of the plan.

Correction officials yesterday said they would still be open to development if a viable proposal was made, but said they are moving ahead with plans to reopen the jail and add a $240 million addition to double its capacity from 749 inmates to 1,469.

Earlier: Just Think How Low The Monthly Maintenance Will Go If We Get Whole Foods As The Tenant!

Location Scout: Brooklyn House of Detention.

Meet Your New Absentee Landlord; Try Not To Call In The Middle Of The Night

Real estate brokers love the weak dollar:

The sidewalks of Manhattan are crammed this month with European tourists on shopping sprees, picking up gifts that cost far less in the United States than they do at home because of the weak dollar. But they are not just crowding into boutiques and department stores. Some are also shopping for condominiums.

“There’s bargains to be had,” said Kerry Miller, a public relations executive who with her husband, Marty, a disc jockey, was working through her Christmas gift list by buying sweaters at Abercrombie & Fitch and makeup at MAC, as well as touring 32 apartments. The Millers, from Malahide, Ireland, a suburb of Dublin, searched for a one-bedroom condo. They made an offer for $700,000 on one apartment in the meatpacking district and are waiting to hear back from the seller.

While natives remain wary about real estate and worry about bonuses and the economic climate, foreign tourists are keeping brokers busy with their eagerness to buy up Manhattan apartments, which many see as investments.

“The exchange rate is like a gift from God for Europeans,” said Danielle Grossenbacher, the broker for Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy who showed the Millers around. “Everybody is feeling they have an opportunity to purchase a piece of Manhattan.”

These buyers are transforming a traditionally slow month for Manhattan real estate brokers at a time when brokers nationwide are struggling to sell homes. This year, Manhattan brokers are waking before dawn to talk by phone with European buyers about amenities and closing costs and working late advising foreign buyers in town on the best places to shop for gadgets and clothes.

. . .

Jonathan Fletcher, who works in information technology, and Aine Marshall, a dentist, came to Manhattan from London to buy a $1 million investment property. Mr. Fletcher, who is considering buying in the financial district, where he believes there is opportunity for appreciation, plans to put down his deposit money first and wait for the dollar to weaken more before paying for the entire apartment. Even if he does not buy an apartment, the savings from shopping in the United States covered the cost of the trip, he said. They spent a total of $8,000 on clothes, a camera and a $5,000 drum set that would have cost about double back home.

A Foreclosure By Any Other Name Smells Like Defeat

The New York City real estate market may be avoiding foreclosures, but it likely leads the country in “maintenance fee defaults”:

Skyrocketing common charges are the last straw for condo and co-op owners barely staying afloat in a volatile housing market, with mortgage rates hitting the roof.

In two Trump buildings alone, seven people were slapped with liens last month for not paying a total of $50,000 in fees.

One Trump condo owner owes more than $19,000 in unpaid maintenance fees, after falling five months behind on common charges.

While some owners struggle because of job losses or skyrocketing flexible-mortgage rates, the surging building fees are not helping matters.

The fees are increasing, management companies say, because it is costing more for water, fuel, utilities and insurance.

“Unquestionably, there have been increased defaults in payment of maintenance charges and common charges. I’ve noticed it since the summer,” said Herbert Cohen, a partner in Stieffel & Cohen in Manhattan, who represents 60 different cooperatives and condominiums.

This month alone, his firm filed nine liens against owners of the condos at 20 West St. in lower Manhattan.

Those outstanding charges range from $1,433 to $9,241.

Though not all missed payments are due to the current economic climate, industry experts say that maintenance-fee delinquency is on the rise as charges continue to climb — which could be a foreboding indicator for an unhealthy housing market.

I Guess This Also Means Plans For The Methadone Clinic Are On The Back Burner?

Is Long Island City big for its britches? How about just big and it bitches? Battery Park City on the East River is starting to get picky about who it wants in the neighborhood:

A plan to build a six-story grad school dormitory and a 13-story residential tower across from the massive Queens West development in Hunters Point is meeting with stiff opposition from the local community board.

This month, the land use committee of Queens Community Board 2 unanimously voted to reject a Board of Standards and Appeals variance application for the dorm, which would house 220 CUNY Graduate School students, and the apartment tower, with a planned 169 units and ground floor retail.

“Dormitory housing in itself is transient housing at its best and offers no stability to the community. We believe that it is a detriment to the growth of Hunters Point,” said Board 2 Chairman Joseph Conley in a letter to the BSA.

But Howard Goldman, attorney for O’Connor Capital, the developer, said it is the dorm that is driving the project, which is slated to be located on 47th Ave. at Fifth St.

“Like many other institutions in the city, they [CUNY Graduate School] have a need for affordable housing for their graduate students,” he said.

The site, said Goldman, “seems like a good candidate because it is just across the river [from the Manhattan-based grad school] and relatively accessible by subway.”

Saying that he understood the community board’s “concerns about the size and density of the project,” nevertheless, the attorney said, the project’s neighbors are much bigger.

“The project is basically across the street from Queens West, where you have 30- to 40-story towers, and is one block south of a proposed high-rise development, Anable Basin, that has been in discussion for a couple years now,” he said.

2 Girls 2 Cuts!

Poor Britney . . . “pop tard” always seemed a little harsh:

One broker could single-handedly lower New York’s collective IQ, after parading two of California’s better-known bottle blondes through Manhattan apartments.

And oops, Britney Spears is looking to buy in New York again! Our sources say that the singer mom/pop tard is searching for a West Village loft in the $9 million price range. She had previously owned an apartment in the Silk Building on East Fourth Street that she sold for $4 million last year. “Britney and her manager recently looked at a couple of places a few weeks ago,” says a source. “She apparently wants to start over in NYC.”

Meanwhile, sources says Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Darren Sukenik, the broker who’s taken Britney shopping, has also brought Jessica Simpson through one of his listings on West 17th Street with a $3.99 million price tag.

The loft-like, six-room duplex penthouse condo in Chelsea, with three bedrooms and two baths, has 2,400 square feet of space with a wood-burning fireplace and a terrace with views in three directions.