After one of the largest ever defaults on an individual property last week, the future of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village is looking more confusing than ever. Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village debt holders have demanded payment from Tishman Speyer Properties LP within 10 days, with foreclosure looming on the horizon, says Bloomberg.com. While a restructuring is certainly in order for the housing complexes, Tishman Speyer, tenants, and elected officials all have different ideas about what that means.
According to the New York Observer, both tenants and elected officials agree that housing should continue to be affordable for the average, middle-class New Yorker. Tishman Speyer already got the ball rolling on this by setting some apartments at rent-stabilized prices (due to a court decision that ruled that the owners were not allowed to deregulate stabilized units.) But some tenants are even looking to buy. "There's a mountain of interest amongst the residents," said Al Doyle, president of the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village tenants association. "We'd like to try to be able to influence—to have a say in our housing situation."
Other options, according to Deutsche Bank, would be to file bankruptcy, or to foreclose and to flip Stuy Town. One group led by Winthrop Realty Trust, which holds about $300 million in debt, said it will pursue a foreclosure sale, possibly acting within 180 days. Whatever happens, someone is going to be losing money! Tishman Speyer bought the properties in 2006 for $5.4 Billion. Today, they're worth less than $2 Billion.
