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Summer is still a few months away, but city officials and planners are already turning their thoughts to the future of Coney Island, the legendary but declining resort area in Brooklyn. Next Wednesday evening, representatives of the city and the Coney Island business community will discuss the city’s plans for the site during a panel discussion at the Museum of the City of New York. A draft environmental impact statement for the city’s $2.5 billion Coney Island master plan is expected to be ready this summer, and some elements of the plan could get under way by next year, according…

The New York City Council Land Use Committee has voted to approve a plan for the development of the former Con Edison site. Plans calling for a park at the site, between 38th and 41st Streets on the city’s east side, just south of the United Nations, can now be solidified. The changes include the granting, by developer Sheldon Solow, of an easement to the city to allow a deck to be built over the FDR highway. Solow also agreed to reduce the planned heights for some of the future buildings, which will help the redesign blend with the neighborhood….

Medical Properties Trust Inc., a healthcare REIT, is selling three inpatient rehabilitation facilities to Vibra Healthcare L.LC. for $90 million. As part of the deal, Vibra, which currently manages the properties, must also pay MPT $17 million for a total deal worth $107 million to MPT.The definitive agreement calls for Vibra to pay a one-time early termination fee of $7 million to MPT and make a $10 million early principal payment on the balance of an existing loan, according to a release from Medical Properties Trust. When the deal closes sometime in the second quarter, Vibra, a specialty health care…

The River House Apartment Complex, Vornado Realty Trust’s 1,670-unit residential property sited just a stone’s throw from Washington, D.C., has been refinanced to the tune of $260 million.Vornado’s two-part financing deal was comprised of a $196 million seven-year interest-only mortgage at a fixed rate of 5.43 percent, and a $64 million interest only 10-year floating rate mortgage secured at 4.36 percent, a rate that combines the Freddie Mac Reference Note rate with an additional 1.53 percent.Consisting of three high-rise structures, River House is located in the Arlington, Va., submarket of Pentagon City. The property was completed in 1958 and underwent…

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson spoke this morning in Washington to make recommendations about tightening the rules under which mortgages are originated, sold and securitized.Using prepared remarks, Paulson (pictured) outlined various steps devised by the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, which emphasized structural changes to prevent the kinds of excess that led to the current credit crisis.”Although we haven’t yet worked completely through this period of market turmoil, and that is our highest priority today, it is not too early to suggest appropriate policy responses,” Paulson said. Included in the “policy responses” proposed by the Working Group are more state…

Wells Fargo & Co. has expanded its multi-family financing services with a new office in Houston and the hiring of a mortgage originator there. Tony Talamas has joined Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital to focus on the origination of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan programs for clients in Texas and surrounding states.  “With the CMBS market and other lending sources either unwilling or unable to lend at competitive terms, if at all, my group continues to offer attractive rates, terms and flexible financing solutions. The opening of a new Texas office in Houston, reflects a positive outlook for the Houston…

SDS Investments L.L.C. has wrapped up the acquisition of 110 acres of land along the Las Vegas Strip, where the pool of developable parcels is greatly limited and the prices are sky-high. The company, a joint real estate investment venture headed up by the Sapir Organization, relied on a $400 million mortgage to complete the deal.It was a final 52-acre plot that brought a three-year period of assembling clusters of acreage to an end. Located off Las Vegas Blvd. and I-15, the land sits in the South Strip area of the famous stretch. The South Strip is at the southernmost…

A joint venture between Charlotte, N.C.-based Crescent Resources L.L.C. and Manulife Financial of Toronto has begun construction of a $175 million, 20-story, LEED-designed office building in Atlanta’s Buckhead submarket. “This is the best site in Atlanta,” John Bell, vice president with Crescent, told CPN. “It is the only site left in Buckhead with a Peachtree address. It provides pedestrian access to the Ritz-Carlton. And it is on Lenox Road, which provides excellent transportation access.”Called Phipps Tower, the 486,000-square-foot building is located across the street from the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead Hotel. It will stand adjacent to and connect directly with the mixed-use…

Muss Development L.L.C. has purchased the 17-story, 130,000-square-foot office building at 64 West 48th Street in Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center area for $54.5 million. The seller, according to a Muss spokesperson, was Western Management. Following a $12 million dollar renovation that’s already under way, the building will be repositioned as a boutique Class A office building, according to a prepared statement. The renovation will include lobby restoration, new elevator cabs, upgraded façade and roof, new HVAC, electrical system upgrades, new bathrooms, and upgraded security systems with keycard access. A total of 25,000 square feet of space, including full floors, will become…

The New York Public Library has unveiled a billion-dollar, five-year plan to renovate its flagship facility on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, develop new hub libraries elsewhere in the city, expand its digital presence and make other changes to the library system.Part of the plan is being funded by a recent $100 million donation by private-equity mogul Stephen Schwarzman, whose Blackstone Group, among many other deals, engineered the largest modern real estate transaction on record with the purchase of Equity Office Properties Trust a little more than a year ago.Schwarzman’s donation is the largest single donation in the library’s history, and…