Rockrose plans two more buildings near 2 Gold

[New Jack City]

NY POST

A LOT OF LUCK

By STEVE CUOZZO

August 9, 2005 -- IT took a little serendipity and a lot of patience, but the Elghanayan family-owned Rockrose Development Corp.'s hugely successful 2 Gold St. rental apartment tower will soon be joined by two new neighbors — a second apartment building on the block's southeast corner and a 416-room hotel on its northeast corner.

Rockrose VP Patricia Dunphy says the company spent 10 years methodically assembling most of the block bounded by Maiden Lane and Pearl, Platt and Gold streets, a mere minutes' stroll from Wall Street.

There was one goal-line obstacle to its long-term vision, though: a small parking lot at the corner of Platt and Pearl, whose owner, insurer C.V. Starr, refused to sell. Starr executives parked there and strolled a few blocks to their offices at 70 Pine St., home to embattled insurance giant AIG — whose former CEO Hank Greenberg is also chairman of Starr.

Now that Starr is splitting off from AIG and moving to 399 Park Ave., it no longer needs a place to park cars.

Rockrose just bought the lot for an undisclosed price. It means the Elghanayans can go ahead with plans for the sites abutting 2 Gold St., the $225 million, 51-story rental apartment building it opened this year and which is already nearly full.

Dunphy said Rockrose now owns the whole block except for a narrow, low-rise building at 213 Pearl. The Rockrose assemblage is zoned for a total build-out of 971,747 square feet, of which 2 Gold St. uses up 535,381 feet.

That leaves Rockrose with 436,000 feet — of which 181,000 is zoned for residential and the rest commercial. The Elghanayans wanted to put up a new apartment tower on the southeast corner and sell off the northeast corner to a hotel developer — the logical commercial option in a soft office market.

The problem was that, although Rockrose owned 215 Pearl St. and 10 Platt St., to the south and west of the parking lot, "we always wanted the lot and we couldn't buy it. It was frustrating," Dunphy said.

A few months ago, Rockrose, tired of waiting, put the south corner site instead — consisting of 101 Maiden Lane and 201 Pearl St. — up for sale to hotel companies. Rockrose had secured city approvals for a 33-story mixed-use project with 259 hotel rooms topped by 43 luxury condos, and tapped CB Richard Ellis to sift offers.

On the block's north side, Rockrose was resigned to razing 10 Platt and using the land to expand 2 Gold St.'s plaza, and leaving its 5-story, 215 Pearl St. as it was.

But because Starr decided to unload the parking lot, "We're shifting the hotel to the north end," a jubilant Dunphy said. The purchase came with a bonus: It boosted the air rights available for residential use at the northeast corner to 50,000 square feet, which Rockrose transferred to the south corner site.

CBRE's Robert Taylor, Ron Danko and Dipan Patel are taking offers on the northeast corner, where a 260,014-square- foot, 41-story hotel with 416 guest rooms can be built as of right.

[7 World Trade]

wow! more gap fillers for downtown! lol

looks like residential/hotel towers are all we're gonna see going up in eastern financial district for years to come.