MAKING PARKS A PRIORITY

Milke: Cities thrive when parks are a priority, not megaprojects
By Mark Milke
Calgary Herald October 26, 2012

Mayors and councillors across North America regularly spend taxpayer cash trying to revitalize neighbourhoods or entire cities. They often do so in expensive and ineffective ways: grand schemes that wipe away existing neighbourhoods or street markets, only to be replaced with massive convention centres (mostly unused by locals), or costly new arenas for professional sports teams.

Such attempts are almost always costly and misallocate tax money; they rarely revitalize cities to the extent advertised by proponents. After all, when is the last time you grabbed a coffee and went for a walk around the edge of a hockey, basketball or football stadium? Most people prefer to hoof it around a lake, along a river, by the ocean, or in local parks and on pedestrian-friendly streets with cafes and shops.

Too often, such tax-financed developments just create mammoth parking lots surrounded by mostly dead zones once some three-hour game or daylong convention is over.

Politicians thus too often forget the tried-and-true basics for livable and attractive cities: keep the streets safe, collect the garbage, ensure the taps pump out clean water, that good schools exist and that playgrounds and parks are tidy and desirable.

They also occasionally ignore the importance of not overtaxing their citizens or discouraging business, also critical for a city’s health. Every city, ultimately, has a commercial basis: people need to first make a living, and only afterward can they (and their governments) spend money on the niceties. Discourage the first and you get less of the second.

If all of the above seems obvious, the reality is that desirable urban features can be foregone in the pursuit of civic megaprojects; they can also be crowded out by too-powerful city unions that unreasonably divert tax dollars from pleasant amenities for all to above-market compensation for the few.

But some recent stories, in Edmonton, and in New York City, where Central Park just received a $100-million gift, should give city lovers the hope that a refocus on the basics of city life is possible.

In Edmonton, city council turned down Edmonton Oilers’ owner Daryl Katz’s demand for another $6 million a year in taxpayer subsidies, this for a proposed new half-billion-dollar NHL arena. (The demand was on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars in previously promised taxpayer funding.)

If Edmonton’s refusal torpedoes a taxpayer-financed rink, great; maybe that will allow everyone to concentrate on what can actually revitalize a neighbourhood.

It doesn’t take an urban development specialist to figure out what can attract people to a neighbourhood, including a willingness to pay top dollar for nearby real estate: beautiful urban parks. Think Stanley Park in Vancouver, Mount Royal in Montreal, the relatively new Millennium Park in Chicago, or one of the world’s premier urban parks, Central Park in New York City.

Recall New York and Central Park in particular. In the 1970s, New York was an overtaxed, crime-ridden, in-hock-to-government unions, falling-apart metropolis. Central Park, a magnificent late 19th century creation, was dilapidated in part because of misplaced political priorities.

New York was a classic example of what happens when those in charge of cities forget what makes them desirable for citizens.

Space doesn’t permit detail on all the reforms enacted in New York, most of which started with the election of Rudolph Giuliani as mayor in 1993. Here’s a snapshot: a crackdown on petty crime, reform of civic spending, making the city more business friendly and less corrupt, and a reduction in taxes.

One pre-Giuliani reform was the restoration of Central Park. The genesis for that began in 1980, when a group of New Yorkers formed the Central Park Conservancy. Shortly thereafter, the conservancy, a charitable foundation, took over management of the park in a public-private partnership with the city.

As an example of what can happen when private citizens drive reform, consider that since 1980, $600 million has been raised for restoring Central Park to its former glory; $470 million of that came from private sources (with the recent $100-million gift a nice top up). At present, the park’s annual operating budget is $46 million, with 85 per cent financed out of conservancy funds. Central Park is again magnificent. That’s because it’s not run as part of a big-city bureaucracy, part of the problem pre-1980.

When local politicians ignore street-level concerns, or wrongly focus on what doesn’t work (megaprojects), or engage in sweetheart deals with civic unions at the expense of more efficient services or needed capital expenditures, the result is a less-than-attractive city. That was a lesson New York learned the hard way.

More positively, when politicians and citizens focus on improving the amenities citizens need and use every day, parks being the best example, a city can thrive as a pleasant and desirable metropolis.

Photo By: surrealplaces

THAT'S OUTRAGEOUS!

The 15 most outrageous home sales of 2011
By Morgan Brennan
Forbes Dec 25, 2011

The U.S. housing market is still in the pits, closing another year marked by falling prices, lackluster sales volumes and a steady stream of foreclosures. For the rich and famous, though, it’s been a year of record-breaking purchases.

We sorted through the biggest, splashiest home sales of the year to bring you a recap of the 15 we deem the most outrageous.

One of the biggest purchases of the year just closed: an US$88-million penthouse condo in New York City’s billionaire-coveted 15 Central Park West. The 6,744-square-foot apartment, which hit the market in November, sold less than six weeks later to Ekaterina Rybolovleva, the 22-year old daughter of Russian billionaire Dmitriy Rybolovlev, reportedly for the full US$88-million asking price.

It is the highest individual transaction in Big Apple history and the second-largest transaction in the U.S. for 2011. Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Miller Samuel, a New York City-based real estate appraisal firm, explained to my colleague Luisa Kroll recently, “This sale is an outlier. It works out to be about $13,000 per square foot, the highest on record, for anything, that has ever occurred.”

The pricey pad belonged to former Citigroup chairman Sandy Weill, who purchased it with his wife in 2007 for US$43.7-million — less than half of what it just sold for. The Weills plan to donate the proceeds to charity and Rybolovleva plans to reside there while attending university in the area. Despite Miller’s insistence that the gargantuan 15 CPW sale is an anomaly, there were two other pricey purchases in New York City this year, both for US$48-million apiece.

California’s real estate market welcomed several huge sales as well. The year’s largest individual transaction was the US$100-million purchase in March of a 25,500-square foot Silicon Valley mansion called Palo Alto Loire Chateau. Russian venture capital billionaire Yuri Milner reportedly plans to use the nine-figure compound as a secondary residence. The Levi Strauss estate, with its humble 2,050-square foot abode, in nearby Atherton sold to an unknown buyer for a hefty US$53-million in September.

The Spelling Manor, a Los Angeles manse formerly known as America’s most expensive home for sale, secured a buyer this summer after nearly three years on the market. The hulking 56,500-square foot Holmby Hills estate was listed for $150 million, and ultimately sold to yet another 22-year-old billionaire heiress, Petra Ecclestone, the daughter of Formula One founder Bernie Ecclestone, for a more reasonable US$85-million. Like Milner, Ecclestone has no plans to reside there full-time, and will split time between the palatial crash pad and one in London.

But while US$85-million may seem like an exorbitant sum to throw down on what essentially will be a pied a terre, David Kramer, the Hilton & Hyland agent who represented Ecclestone for her L.A. purchase, says the wealthy British family consider it a good investment. “If you say to someone who has billions of dollars, ‘Hey I’ll get you 43% off of a landmark home that in a good market really would be a US$100-million or more home, they will say let’s do it.”

Many real estate experts, Kramer and Miller included, chalk up increased interest in the home market among the big-money set to the same thing: perceived bargains. The weak dollar coupled with depreciated home prices (even at the high end) have translated into investment opportunities, particularly for rich foreigners looking to hedge fortunes in brick and mortar assets.

All of the headline-grabbing sales that have transpired this year have led to even more high-profile properties hitting the sale block. A plethora of trophy homes are available like Manhattan’s US$90-million Woolworth Mansion, Guess co-founder Armand Marciano’s US$63-million Beverly Hills compound, a US$60-million private resort in Indian Creek, Fla., and the less expensive but equally noteworthy US$12.5-million former Sinatra estate called Farralone. A US$175-million ranch in Jackson, Wyo. also came to market this year.

“I am seeing unique, special properties that no one ever would have thought would come on the market,” says Kramer. “These are properties that, like a piece of art, can and will never be duplicated. They can be considered part of people’s collections.”

South Florida’s luxury market has welcomed big spenders, too. Miami clocked four transactions priced at roughly US$20-million or higher this year. The most recent, the sale of the Setai South Beach’s palatial penthouse for US$21.5-million, is believed to be the highest price ever paid for a Miami Beach condo unit. The Thai-inspired apartment, which had belonged to Netscape founder Jim Clark, had been listed for $27 million. Another Russian billionaire, Roustam Tariko, coughed up US$25.5-million for a Star Island estate, the highest price paid in Miami since 2006.

“We have had an influx of rich people that have come to the city recently,” says Farid Moussalem, a ONE Sotheby’s International Realty agent who represented the buyer of Sunset Island’s Villa Tranquilla estate. The property was sold by American billionaire George Lindemann for US$19.8-million this summer, about 34% off the initial 2009 asking price of US$30-million. “I don’t think this is over; I think next year we will see more of these kinds of high-end sales,” says Moussalem.

Some ritzy residences didn’t find buyers this year until their asking prices were drastically cut. Oracle’s Larry Ellison, No. 3 on the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans, picked up Porcupine Creek in Rancho Mirage, Calif., for US$42.9-million, 43% off the initial US$75-million asking price; fertilizer billionaire Alexander Rovt scooped up New York City’s Sloane Mansion an hour before its foreclosure auction for roughly US$33-million, or about 48% off the initial US$64-million ask price. Perhaps the biggest high-end discount sale of the year was Le Reve, a massive Versailles-like compound just north of Atlanta, Ga., that finally sold this summer for US$9.5-million. It had been originally listed at US$45-million.

Also making our roundup were two infamous foreclosures, both repossessed by lender Bank of America. Patricia Kluge’s Albemarle estate in Charlottesville, Va., once listed for US$100-million, was taken by the bank in February for US$15.26-million; and San Francisco’s St. Regis penthouse, once listed for US$70-million, earned the title of most expensive bank-owned property when it was sold back to the bank by former owner-developer Victor MacFarlane in lieu of foreclosure. That penthouse found a buyer just recently for US$28-million.

88 BIG ONES

22-year-old buys $88-million apartment in New York City
Agence France-Presse
Dec 21, 2011

NEW YORK — The daughter of a Russian billionaire has broken New York real estate records by paying $88 million for a huge Manhattan apartment, Forbes magazine reported.

Yekaterina Rybolovleva, daughter of former fertilizer magnate Dmitry Rybolovlev, paid full asking price for the multiroom spread at 15 Central Park West, the magazine reported Monday, saying this was a record for an individual transaction in a city renowned for pricey property.

The record was previously owned by Sanford Weill, a former chairman of Citigroup.

Forbes quoted a representative for Rybolovleva, 22, saying she had “signed a contract to purchase an apartment at 15 Central Park West… Ms. Rybolovleva is currently studying at a US university. She plans to stay in the apartment when visiting New York.”

She is a resident of Monaco and has lived in the principality and in Switzerland for the last 15 years, the statement said.

Rybolovlev is one of the small group of Russians who became fabulously wealthy during the post-Soviet privatization of the economy and are known as oligarchs. He is the former owner of fertilizer business Uralkali.

I WANT TO BE A BILLIONAIRE

Cities with the most billionaires – 2011
Morgan Brennan
May 30, 2011

When the U.S. economy was riding high for most of the 20th century, it would have been impossible to imagine a foreign city--especially one in a Communist country--with more of the planet's very richest than New York, home of old-money Wall Street. But that indeed is the case. Today Moscow is the city with the most billionaire residents in the world.

The Russian capital boasts 79 billionaires, a stunning increase of 21 in just one year. That more than edges out No. 2 New York, with 59 billionaires, and No. 3 London with 41. Other cities in the top 15 include such rising stars as Mumbai, Taipei, Sao Paolo and Istanbul. Los Angeles manages a tie for No. 8.

The combined fortunes of Moscow's billionaire population top $375 billion, more privately amassed wealth than in any other city in the world.

Despite New York's relegation to second place, the city remains a favored locale of billionaires, whose collective net worth is $221 billion. The Big Apple boasts some of the most expensive ZIP codes in the U.S., due in part to the real estate prices paid by billionaires in this city. Indeed, many Moscow residents own secondary homes in New York, including fertilizer and coal magnate Andrey Melnichenko, whose wife recently closed on a $12.2 million penthouse apartment. Even the world's richest man, Carlos Slim (home: Mexico City), snatched up a $44 million mansion on Central Park last year.

To compile our list, we tallied the primary residences of all 1,210 billionaires on the 2011 Forbes World's Billionaires list, our annual assessment of people sporting seven-figure or higher fortunes in U.S. dollars. We did not take secondary homes into account for this list.

In the U.S. we stuck strictly to city limits. For example, while a smattering of prominent media barons like Viacom founder Sumner Redstone and T.V. tycoon Haim Saban reside in Beverly Hills, they are not included in the pile of Los Angeles residents since Beverly Hills is its own city (although largely surrounded by Los Angeles).

Here are the the world's five top cities for billionaires:

Istanbul, Turkey scores No. 5.
No. 5: Istanbul
Number of Billionaires: 36
Total combined wealth: $60.5 billion

Billionaires include: Turkey's richest person, Mehmet Emin Karamehmet, chairman of mobile phone company Turkcell; Turkey's former richest, finance and retail scion, Husnu Ozyegin; and Macedonian-born Sarik Tara, founder of construction giant, ENKA.

Hong Kong scores No. 4.
No. 4: Hong Kong
Number of Billionaires: 40
Total combined wealth: $176.8 billion

Billionaires include: Greater China's richest person, Hutchison Whampoa chairman Li Ka-shing; the Kwok family, the brothers behind Hong Kong's largest real estate developer, SHKP; and Angela Leong, the controversial heiress of Stanley Ho's casino empire.

London scores No. 3.
No. 3: London
Number of Billionaires: 41
Total combined wealth: $164.3 billion

Billionaires include: Indian citizen Lakshmi Mittal, the world's sixth-richest man thanks to steel-maker ArcelorMittal; daredevil Virgin founder Richard Branson; and Philip & Christina Green, the married couple behind clothing company Topshop.

New York City scores No. 2.
No. 2: New York
Number of Billionaires: 59
Total combined wealth: $220.8 billion

Billionaires include: media mogul and current mayor Michael Bloomberg; fashion designer Ralph Lauren; and real estate developer-turned-reality T.V. celebrity Donald Trump.

Moscow scores No. 1.
No. 1: Moscow
Number of Billionaires: 79
Total combined wealth: $375.3 billion

Billionaires include: Russia's richest man, steel magnate Vladmimir Lisin; commodities investor and Chelsea soccer team owner Roman Abramovich; and venture capitalist and Facebook investor Yuri Milner.

THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

 

Simple life in Manhattan: A 90-square-foot home

By Kirsten Dirksen
APRIL 6, 2011

The average size of the American home is shrinking -- it dropped in both 2008 and 2009 after 15 straight years of growth -- but most of us are still living larger than people in the Big Apple. Home size in Manhattan is about half the national average.

One New Yorker has taken her love of frugal living to the extreme. Felice Cohen’s apartment measures just 90 square feet, but she doesn’t see it as a sacrifice. With such a small space, she pays just $700 to live in a part of town where rents average $3,600 per month.

Her kitchen consists of a toaster oven, hot pot, and mini fridge, but she claims her backyard is larger than average: “I look out my window, and it’s New York City. I mean, that’s my backyard. Central Park is a block away. I can go into the park. I have Lincoln Center. I have libraries. I have gyms all over the place. Sometimes, I feel like you’re in college, and it’s a huge campus, and you can take advantage of everything you want to take advantage of.” Learn how Felice organizes her 90-square-foot home.

Granted, Cohen had a bit of a panic attack the first night in her apartment when she woke up in the loft bed with the ceiling 23 inches from her face, but she’s grown accustomed to the small space. Now when she goes back to her childhood home, she misses her apartment’s coziness:

“I think a lot of people have a lot of space that they’re not using. I grew up in a place where my bedroom was 17 feet by 17 feet with two walk-in closets that combined were almost the size of this apartment ... when I go home now, I go in the closet just to feel like I’m back in New York.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZSdrtEqcHU

STREET TALK

The 10 Most Expensive Streets In The World
Mamta Badkar
Business Insider · Mar. 14, 2011

#10 Ostozhenka, Moscow
Top price: $18,000 per square meter
Price change since 2009: -30%

A statue of Friedrich Engels marks the beginning of Ostozhenka Street which is part of Moscow's Golden Mile. The street is known for pre-Revolutionary architecture and newer constructions in the neighborhood have been designed to blend in.

#9 Wolseley Road, Point Piper
Top price: $20,900 per square meter
Price change since 2009: -5%

The $52 million sale of Villa Veneto has been Wolseley Road's most expensive sale. Owned by some of Australia's richest businessmen, many of these homes have stunning views of the Sydney Harbor.

#8 Via Romazzino, Porto Cervo, Sardinia
Top price: $23,700 per square meter
Price change since 2009: -35%

Some of the richest Italian's and Russian billionaires like reportedly have vacation homes at Porto Cervo, an Italian sea-side resort. The Via Romazzino is supposed to be the poshest part of Porto Cervo.

#7 Rue Bellot, Geneva
Top price: $43,000 per square meter
Price change since 2009: -2%

Rue Bellot first made the top 10 list in 2010 and its prices have slipped since. Prices have been pushed up by rising demand for homes and fewer sales.

#6 Quai Anatole, Paris
Top price: $44,600 per square meter
Price change since 2009: (new)

With gorgeous neo-classical architecture and views of the River Seine Paris' Quai Anatole makes its first appearance on the list.

#4 Fifth Avenue, New York (TIE)
Top price: $62,700 per square meter
Price change since 2009: -4%

New York's Fifth Ave which tied for the second spot on last year's list has dropped to fourth position this year. It's still home to some of the most expensive real-estate and boutiques in the world though.

#4 Chemin de Saint-Hospice, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat (TIE)
Top price: $62,700 per square meter
Price change since 2009: +5%

Prices of the 15 homes on Nice's Chemin de Saint-Hospice have gone up since 2010. It tied for fourth position this year after having dropped to 5th position last year down from the second spot in 2009.

#3 Avenue Princesse Grace
Top price: $69,700 per square meter
Price change since 2009: +2%

Prices on Monaco's Avenue Princesse Grace have dropped significantly from the $120,000 it demanded in 2009. While its rank and rates are up from 2010 and it still makes the top 10 list, there has been a lack of demand for real-estate in the area.

#2 Kensington Palace Gardens, London
Top price: $76,600 per square meter
Price change since 2009: +2%

Kensington Palace Gardens often called Billionaire's Row held the same spot in 2010. The street houses many embassies and billionaire's like Lakshmi Mittal and hedge fund manager Noam Gottesman have homes there.

#1 Severn Road, Hong Kong
Top price: $78,200 per square meter
Price change since 2009: +9%

Having ranked 8th in 2009, Severn Road has held the top spot since 2010. It's rates fell 72% during the recession but the wealthiest residents in Mainland China have driven up prices there.

POCKET FULL OF DREAMS

The world's richest man's new Manhattan mansion
Francesca Levy, Forbes · Thursday, Aug. 5, 2010

If you stand on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and look across the street, you'll have a small chance of glimpsing the world's richest person.

Last month Mexican telecommunications tycoon Carlos Slim Helu, who is worth US$53.5-billion, bought the Duke-Semans mansion, a beaux-arts townhouse directly across from the Met, for US$44-million, public records show. That record-breaking price is the most paid for any New York home in nearly two years.

The mansion's seller, Tamir Sapir, famously ascended from taxi driver to billionaire by trading in oil and then investing in real estate. He bought the property from the descendants of its original owner, tobacco mogul Benjamin N. Duke, in 2006, paying US$40-million. That leaves him with a 10% profit —healthy, in a sluggish market.

Here's what's important to know about the sale, the home and how this transaction will change luxury real estate.

The Duke-Semans is one of a kind.

Location is critical in ultra-high end Manhattan real estate, and the Duke-Semans has a great one: The corner of Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street, on New York's vaunted "Museum Mile." But staking a claim to the right street (Fifth Avenue is the Holy Grail) isn't enough to qualify for greatness. Buyers measure prestige in feet — as in, how many of them a building occupies on a coveted block.

The Duke-Semans has everything going for it: It stretches up 82nd street for 100 feet (a luxurious distance, in this part of Manhattan), then turns the corner, occupying 27 feet on Fifth Avenue. The combination of its unusual length, Fifth Avenue visibility, and corner location can't be found in any other building. That uniqueness is what allowed Broker Paula Del Nunzio, of the firm Brown Harris Stevens, to originally price the home at US$50 million.

But it might be a fixer-upper.

Samir reportedly intended to renovate the 19,500-square-foot house in the four years he owned it, but never did. Although the exterior is breathtaking, the house needs some work on the inside — a fact that helps explain Helu's 12% discount off the asking price.

There's more evidence to suggest the mansion boasts a less-than-sparkling interior: Brown Harris Stevens only provided press and prospective buyers with detail shots of ornate moldings and period elegance, not the sweeping shots of ballrooms, stairways and terraces that are typical for these kinds of sales. The home may be in need of major work.

It was snapped up quickly.

Brown Harris Stevens put the Duke-Semans on the market in January. If it were a normal home, stagnating on the market for nearly seven months would bode very poorly for a sale. But in the rarified world of luxury real estate, where homes fetch US$10-million or more, it's expected that properties may languish on the market for two or three years. Only a few thousand people in the world can afford homes like this, so sellers expect to wait. The fact that the turnaround was comparatively quick indicates wise pricing, and perhaps growing demand in the luxury market.

The broker may not have gotten a cut.

After all her hard work representing the home, Del Nunzio may not have reaped the reward of a handsome commission. It has been reported that Helu and Sapir agreed to the deal privately. Del Nunzio told Forbes she could not discuss the details of the sale.

Even if she was sidelined, Del Nunzio's carefully calibrated pricing strategy may have been crucial to the home selling so quickly. Del Nunzio is known for reading the market extremely well, and pricing homes as close as possible to what buyers are willing to pay. As a result, she has logged US$620-million in sales of 40 townhouses since 2007, and her homes fetch an average 97% of the asking price. That's impressive in an era where unrealistically priced luxury homes have become notorious for slashing their prices as much as 40%.

In March she discussed her strategy for pricing homes with Forbes: "The right price is a matter of the temperature of the times, also the recent comp sales," she said. "Each one is a separate instance at a separate time. We price them to the highest level that we can, given the conditions of the market."

This is a sign that the high-end home market is stabilizing.

In the second quarter of 2010 the median sales price of a Manhattan luxury home (defined as homes above US$3-million) rose 12% from the previous year. Demand for these pricey abodes has ramped up, and inventory has tightened, according to a recent report by Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

But even outside of New York, the super-high-end home market comprises so few properties that just one sale can change the tide of the market. Aside from the Duke-Semans, two recent sales give luxury brokers hope for the future:

In late April billionaire Kelcy Warren bought the 3,000-acre Bootjack Ranch in Colorado for US$42-million, setting a price record for the year; just two months later, the Bel Air mansion Le Belvedere was sold for even more, to an unnamed European family.

"We see a stabilizing trend in the ultra-luxury segment, as high-net-worth buyers pursue the very best properties at opportunistic price points," says Bill Fandel of Peaks Real Estate Sotheby's International Realty, who handled the sale of the Bootjack Ranch, via an e-mail.

Del Nunzio agrees, calling the sale "a signal that for the property possessing the unique features a buyer wants, the buyer in today's market conditions will not only pay as much as yesterday's buyer, but even more."

What does that mean for the rest of us? Unfortunately, not too much. Trends in luxury real estate rarely correspond to the housing market at large, where foreclosure and price statistics remain discouraging. But even if you'll never be able to afford a treasure like the Duke-Semans mansion, take comfort that the museum across the street allows access to the trappings of great wealth and beauty — for as little as a penny.