From left: 407 Vanderbilt Avenue and Arina Yakobi of Douglas Elliman

It’s a trophy property if there ever was one. A stately mansion hit the market in the Clinton Hill area asking a whopping $4.88 million — a record asking price, according to StreetEasy. Despite the home’s relative grandeur, the most eye-catching detail in the listing photos is a stack of the current owner’s trophies (no, not the recently-dead kind, the sort you win at youth soccer tournaments) piled in the living room.

interior of 470 Vanderbilt Avenue

The converted carriage house at 407 Vanderbilt Avenue was redeveloped in 2006 and modeled after the historic homes in the area, many of which date to the 1880s, the listing and previous coverage shows.

interior of 407 Vanderbilt Avenue

Notwithstanding the less-than-sleek feel of the listing photos, the sale would be the neighborhood’s priciest by more than $1 million if the sellers get their full asking price, according to a review of StreetEasy sales. The most single-family home to sell in the neighborhood so far was nearby 380 Clinton Avenue, which sold for $3.8 million in 2011, according to city records.

It is also by far the most expensive property ever listed in Clinton Hill.

Exterior of 407 Vanderbilt Avenue

A Michael Bunton took title of the property, which was the Wall Street Journal’s “House of the day” yesterday, for $10 in 2001, according to city records.

Bunton spent about $1.5 million building the quasi-historic mansion, which the Journal called “an homage” to local buildings.

In 2007, the 3,500-square-foot home hit the market asking $3.5 million, marketed by the Corcoran Group, according to reports. But no sale ever took place, per city records.

Now, Arina Yakobi of Douglas Elliman is marketing the four-story, five-bedroom, five-bathroom home, which boasts a media room, a backyard, radiant heated floors and, for those for whom size matters, is 27 feet wide.

Airbnb’s founders

Apartment dwellers who use Airbnb to rent out their rooms are worried they’ll lose out on the extra income, following a court decision this week that upheld a $2,400 fine against an Upper East Side landlord who used the service, DNAinfo reported.

The ruling dealt with a tenant, Nigel Warren, who allegedly ran afoul of the city’s illegal hotel law by renting out his room using the short-term rental site, as previously reported.

One Airbnb user told DNAinfo that he had some canceled bookings following the decision.

“It is my primary source of income,” said one self-employed East Village resident, who requested anonymity for fear of repercussions. “It is a real threat to my livelihood.”

The tenant began renting out a single room or sometimes her whole three-bedroom pad in order to take care of an ill family member, she said, adding that she made thousands of dollars by using the service during the past two years.

Others, however, said they will press on. A 25-year-old tenant said she would rent out one room in her apartment instead of both.

“We only wanted to sublet the whole apartment to earn some quick cash and get the money back that we put down on the apartment in the first place,” she told DNAinfo. [DNAinfo] —Zachary Kussin

From left: Eric Goldberg of Olshan Frome Wolosky, 333 Greene Avenue

Bonjour Capital has finally closed on a long-stalled Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment complex that has been the subject of much dispute, paying $16 million, an attorney for Bonjour confirmed to The Real Deal today. The deal, completed this week, will allow the new owner to proceed with the 57-unit rental project.

The conversion of the industrial building at 333-345 Greene Avenue is about 70 percent complete. Bonjour, in a partnership with real estate developer and manager Empire Equities, bought the first mortgage on the building last March from Banco Popular; at the time, more than $18.4 million of principal and interest was due. Empire has since sold its interest in the partnership, called Team Greene 333 LLC, Bonjour’s attorney said.

The project was originally the brainchild of developers Joseph Tyrnauer and Martin Daskal — through an entity called 333-345 Green LLC — but years of infighting hastened the busted project’s slide into foreclosure, said attorney Eric Goldberg of Olshan Frome Wolosky LLP, who represented Bonjour.

The pair also faced foreclosure at another project, at 1775 East 17th Street, in Brooklyn’s Midwood area, records show.

Bonjour intends to immediately finish construction and market the units as rentals, Goldberg said.

The Manhattan-based real estate investment and development firm, led by Charles Dayan, moved to take control of the property starting in 2012, with a foreclosure auction held in January of this year. However, one week after the auction, Tyrnauer field for bankruptcy, per court records.

Tyrnauer’s action brought the foreclosure proceedings to a halt, since foreclosure actions cannot legally move forward with a party in bankruptcy. Indeed, Goldberg characterized the bankruptcy filing as a stall tactic.

Neither Daskal nor Tyrnauer could be reached, and a call to the attorney representing Tyrnauer in his bankruptcy declined to comment.

Just last week, Bonjour reached an agreement with the debtors to buy the project, which had sat in purgatory for more than three years.

The glass- and brick-fronted structure, originally set to rise 12 stories, has seen construction start and stop for nearly six years now, published reports show.

An entity identified only as 333-345 Greene LLC bought the property in 2003 for $1.1 million, property records show. The listed address for the entity is the same as Tyrnauer’s home, according to city records.

Bonjour sold 5 Beekman Street, set to become a boutique hotel, for $64 million last year. The group also partnered with Joseph Chetrit and Yair Levy on 620 Sixth Avenue, a mixed-use Chelsea building deductively valued at $500 million when Scott Rechler’s RXR Realty picked up the last stake from that trio last year.

Max Fish

1. Townhouse at 386 Van Brunt Street asking $2.15 million could set a Red Hook record if sold [NYO]
2. Lehman Brothers to sell millions of shares of AvalonBay and Equity Residential [Housing Wire]
3. Brooklyn-bound Max Fish hightailing it out of Lower East Side by July [Lo-Down]
4. Digital marketing firm signs lease for 8,732 square feet at 373 Park Avenue South [NYO]
5. Barbara Corcoran tells her story — of going from a diner waitress to a mogul [CNN]
6. Rentals at 818 Dean Street hit the market, says exclusive agent Halstead Property [Brownstoner]
7. Construction may be near for vacant lot at East 13th Street [EV Grieve]
8. Mortgage bonds issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fall hard [WSJ]
9. Governor Cuomo’s tax-free plan would offer exemptions to college-friendly businesses [NYT]
10. Broadway stars Charlotte d’Amboise and Terrence Mann are proud Harlem residents [NYP]
11. Ridgewood residents push for owners of historic theater to reveal rehab plans [Queens Courier]
12. After 10 years, $25 million mansion at 277 1st Street in Brooklyn almost ready [NYP]
13. Oklahoma tornado victims offered mortgage relief [NYT]

From left: 338 Berry Street and a rendering of the building’s solar paneling

The owner of the former Tung Fa Noodle Factory in Williamsburg, which most recently housed a group of artists who were evicted last year after losing a long legal battle, is aiming to convert the property to apartments, according to BuzzBuzzHome.

Developer Mona Gora-Friedman filed an application with the Department of Buildings seeking to convert 338 Berry Street into an eight-story, 65-unit residential development, but it was disapproved, the website noted.

The apartments would span studios through three-bedrooms.

DXA studio is the architect of record, and they plan an exterior restoration of the property. Most notably, they will add 6,000 square feet in solar paneling for electricity, as well as a 5,000-square-foot terrace to collect storm water and provide insulation.

Gora-Friedman purchased the site for $12 million in 2005. [BuzzBuzzHome] –Zachary Kussin

From left: Deborah Gutoff, Paul Nigido, Gabriel Saffioti and 205-207 Eighth Avenue

Two Chelsea mixed-use buildings have sold for $15.9 million after three months on the market, the New York Observer reported. Located at 205 and 207 Eighth Avenue between 20th and 21st streets, the buildings have 23 apartments and two retail spaces.

There will be renovations to the lobbies and the buildings’ facades. One of the retailers, a sex shop named Rainbow Station, which is now on a month-to-month lease, will be replaced with a more upscale store.

The buyer is a multi-family lifestyle development company based in the Southwest, according to Gabriel Saffioti of Eastern Consolidated, who represented the buyer but declined to disclose its identity.

Nine of the homes are rent-stabilized, two are rent-controlled and the remaining 12 have been renovated and rent at market rates.

“The regulated apartments, which make up almost half of the units, are renting at below market rates, so there is tremendous future financial upside for the buyer,” Eastern Consolidated’s Deborah Gutoff, who along with Paul Nigido represented the seller, told the Observer.

The buildings together measure 21,800 square feet. Each has approximately 8,800 square feet of homes and over 2,000 square feet of retail. [NYO] –Zachary Kussin

415 West Broadway

A 38,885-square-foot office and retail property on a well-trafficked stretch of Soho is up for grabs, The Real Deal has learned. The building — located at 415 West Broadway between Spring and Prince streets — could fetch over $40 million, according to sources with knowledge of the listing.

Westchester-based commercial landlord Willett Companies owns the six-story building. The fully leased property has six retail and office tenants, including Jamali NYC Gallery, an art gallery, and Altamarea Group, which runs seven restaurants in New York City and New Jersey. The leases expire between 2014 and 2021. Retail rents are in the $170 per-square-foot range, and office rents are in the mid-$40s, sources said.

The top floor is made up of two apartments occupied by tenants with interim multiple dwelling status, meaning they are covered under the city’s artist-in-residence law.

A Jones Lang LaSalle team led by Vice Chairman Richard Baxter is handling the marketing.

Neither Baxter nor Willett CEO Frank Kenny would comment.

Adelaide Polsinelli, a senior director at Eastern Consolidated who is not involved with the building, told The Real Deal that the property could trade for $1,500 per square foot, or about $40 million.

At that price, “it’s an investment in the future,” she said. “You’re buying something that’s just going to appreciate.”

Plus, when it comes to area retail, West Broadway offers shoppers a different experience than Broadway, she said.

“For $1,000 a foot, you’re on Broadway getting trampled,” she said of rents nearby. “For $170 a foot, you can be relaxed … It’s a more pleasant experience.”

And with retail driving values in the neighborhood, it’s a good time for Willett to unload the building, she said.

“Anyone who’s an owner and a retailer would want to be an owner here,” she said, noting that West Broadway is home to national and international retailers, as well as galleries.

Willett purchased the building in 2008 for $28.5 million from an entity named 413 West Broadway Corp., city records show.

Baxter, along with JLL vice chairman Scott Latham, is also handling the sale for SL Green’s 333 West 34th Street. This 350,000-square-foot property, which is located between Eighth and Ninth avenues, could sell for $225 million, as previously reported.

Willett sold 113 Spring Street to Sitt Asset Management for $32.5 million last year, according to public records. More recently, Willett faced a lawsuit from Azad Property Group, as The Real Deal reported earlier this year. Azad claimed that it arranged a deal for Vornado Realty Trust to buy 131-137 Spring Street only to have Willett back out and sell to SL Green.

From left: Mitti Liebersohn, 1290 Avenue of the Americas and Matthew Astrachan

UPDATED, 5:37 p.m., May 23: In what is the largest sublease of the year so far, Morgan Stanley has inked a 148,421-square-foot deal at Vornado Realty Trust’s 1290 Avenue of the Americas, according to data from commercial real estate firm Cassidy Turley provided to The Real Deal.

The nation’s sixth-largest bank by assets subleased the entire 12th and 13th floors from life insurance company AXA Equitable, which has 443,599 square feet in the 44-story, 2 million-square-foot Midtown office tower, located between 51st and 52nd streets, according to CoStar Group. The length of the term is 11 years.

A Jones Lang LaSalle team led by Matthew Astrachan, Mitti Liebersohn and Paul Glickman brokered the deal. Morgan Stanley has been reportedly eyeing the space since at least the beginning of May, and an unidentified executive told the New York Post at the time that rents would be in the $40s per square foot. Representatives from Morgan Stanley, JLL and AXA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The deal is comfortably the year’s largest sublease transaction. Another AXA sublease deal at the building, in which Sirius Satellite took 86, 877 square feet on the entire 11th floor, was the second largest, the Cassidy Turley data show. French alcohol manufacturer Remy Cointreau also took 52,811 square feet from AXA on the 14th floor of the building.

The largest sublease deals of 2013 so far (Click to enlarge image)

Law firm Ropes & Gray — which has seven floors at Beacon Capital Partners’ 1211 Avenue of the Americas totaling over 277,000 square feet  – subleased the 40th floor to law firm Zeichner Ellman & Krause, the data show.

The 10-year deal covered a 42,435-square-foot space and, according to data provider CompStak, rents for the sublease were in the low $50s per square foot, while Ropes’ current rent for the space is in the $60s.

“Sublease space continues to be in high demand in today’s value-driven market,” said Richard Persichetti, Cassidy Turley’s vice president of research, marketing and consulting , explaining that sublease tenants enjoy, on average, a 10 to 15 percent pricing discount compared to direct leases.

In April 2012, Morgan Stanley signed a nearly 1.2-million-square-foot renewal and expansion lease at Brookfield Office Properties’ 1 New York Plaza in Lower Manhattan that will keep them in the building through 2029.

Jonathan Butler and the East River State Park

Much to the consternation of area families, the New York State Department of Parks and Preservation has cut free children’s movie programming in Williamsburg’s East River State Park, in the wake of the Brooklyn Flea marketplace, co-founded by Brownstoner blogger Jonathan Butler, moving to the park, DNAinfo reported.

Local parents claim that with the market set up on weekends and the kids programming cut, they hardly have access to the neighborhood’s rare green space.

“This place is a circus every weekend,” local parent Jonathan Burkan told DNAinfo of the Flea, “and you’d think they’d want to do something for the kids. They don’t seem to care about the kids who need to use this park.”

Representatives for the Brooklyn Flea and the parks department did not immediately respond to DNAinfo’s requests for comment.

However, DNAinfo noted, in previous meetings, state parks department representatives said revenue from the market would go toward park maintenance and improvements.

“It’s very disturbing that they can’t find it in their budget,” Burkan told DNAinfo of the department. “It’s ironic that they very quickly sold out our park to someone bringing in hundreds of vendors, and yet they can’t work with a local mom.” [DNAinfo] –Zachary Kussin