JEMB lands fresh capital stack for Brooklyn’s tallest office

January 29, 2026 / no comments

Four years after topping out Brooklyn’s office skyline, JEMB Realty pulled off a financial reset at 1 Willoughby Square, bringing in partners and refinancing a tangle of construction-era debt to keep control of the 35-story tower. The 500,000-square-foot Downtown Brooklyn building was recapitalized through a complex transaction that included new equity, splitting the tower into condos and a $125 million mortgage from Deutsche Bank, according to Bisnow and a recent Fitch Ratings report.  Among the latest round of investors is Edmond Safra, a member of the Safra banking family, alongside Adnane Mousannif’s AVRS Partners and KSR Capital principals Abraham Kassin […]

This article originally appeared on The Real Deal. Click here to read the full story.

Midtown hotel owner pushed out of two Times Square-area properties

January 29, 2026 / no comments

A Long Island investor who leaned on pandemic-era stopgaps to keep Midtown hotels afloat has now lost both properties. Paramdeep Singh, who owns gas stations and operated the hotels through Premier Hotels, was stripped of control at 59 West 46th Street and 129 West 46th Street after defaults, foreclosure actions and investor infighting, Crain’s reported. At 59 West 46th Street, a nine-story, 234-room hotel just off Sixth Avenue, Singh was undone by a former partner-turned-lender. Boris Aronov, a cab driver who later became a Diamond District diamond dealer, acquired the building’s distressed mortgage last summer and then moved to foreclose […]

This article originally appeared on The Real Deal. Click here to read the full story.

Fictitious deals and phony emails: New Nussbaum filings lay bare alleged Ponzi scheme

January 29, 2026 / no comments

Mark Nussbaum, a disgraced Manhattan attorney and real estate fixer, said in new legal filings that he diverted $336 million from his law firm’s escrow clients to real estate investor Mendel Steiner between 2022 and 2025.  The filings reveal the inner workings of Nussbaum and Steiner’s alleged Ponzi scheme, where some creditors were offered “fictitious investment opportunities regarding supposed proof of funds transactions or purchases of real property that did not really exist,” said Nussbaum.  “Phony emails, escrow agreements, and deal documentation were used; non-existent third-parties in whose names the deals were supposedly being done were invented,” the filings state. […]

This article originally appeared on The Real Deal. Click here to read the full story.

“Contempt if I ever saw it”: OYO Hotels burned by judge

January 29, 2026 / no comments

A judge is blasting OYO Hotels for its actions at a Times Square hotel, where a dispute is raging between the company and its former manager, Highgate Hotels. On Tuesday, a judge found OYO Hotels in contempt after violating a previous order, Crain’s reported. The decision puts OYO on the hook for legal fees in the dispute, which could fall in the six-figure range when determined next week. The judge pulled no punches in finding OYO in contempt for firing the property’s manager and dozens of unionized employees, despite an order not to do so. “I don’t even know what […]

This article originally appeared on The Real Deal. Click here to read the full story.