Not since the Reichmanns willed the World Financial Center into existence has Lower Manhattan been this much of a frum proving ground.

Gone are the limit-up kamikazes, the institutional investors, and the girthy men w/ (formerly) deep pockets. In their place have come prolific builders who cut their teeth in Brooklyn, establishing a track record of putting up product w/ minimal drama and maniacally controlling costs so that tricky projects can pencil.

The latest and most intriguing examples come to us from Two Bridges, a fmr. Urban Renewal Area kissing LES/Chinatown that’s long been a development boondoggle. Yossi Hoffman’s Bushburg is in contract to buy Gary Barnett’s site at 259 Clinton, The Promote understands. We can also reveal that 265-275 Cherry St., the neighboring site which is nominally owned by the troubled Chetrit Group, has a far more bankable shot-caller in the mix: Simon Dushinsky. 👇

A message from Pensford’s JP Conklin: There’s only a 10% chance the Fed hikes this week, but an 80% chance they hike in December. This week’s meeting is really about the December meeting. But 🪑 Warsh is going to try his hardest to avoid signaling a December move. If we assume he successfully dodges those questions, here’s what the market will look at.

Bushburg is slated to close on the Extell parcel sometime next month, per sources familiar w/ the transaction. Pricing is not straightforward, since per the large-scale residential development plan that ties the projects together, any buyer needs to cough up their share to public improvements incl. a costly subway station spruce-up. Including those costs, Bushburg’s bet is in the $100M range, one source said. Barnett began shopping the site late last year via Meridian’s Helen Hwang. (Hwang couldn’t be reached for comment, and Extell does not comment on in-progress deals unless Gary has a specific reason to do so.)

Bushburg, which made its bones by transforming a Bushwick factory into a mini-mall, is making a big splash across Lower Manhattan, with office-resi projects such as the hulking 80 Pine (bought from Rudin) and potentially 100 William (bought from Manulife). Given the intertwined fate of the Two Bridges projects, it was tricky to find a willing buyer here, given that the status of the other 2 parcels has long been a big question mark. One of the parcel owners described it thus: “Everyone’s about to bungee jump, and everyone’s saying ‘YOU FIRST! YOU FIRST!’” 🪂

• At 247 Cherry, Michael Stern’s JDS Development has long been tied up in litigation. JDS has no immediate plans to move forward with the development, slated for a ≈675K sf project.
• Meanwhile, at 265-275 Cherry, Chetrit allegedly defaulted on a small mezz loan from Madison Realty Capital, which was also its sr. lender at the site. Madison moved to foreclose in fall ‘24, but the parties reportedly came to terms on a loan extension soon after. The Chetrit Group’s portfolio-wide financial woes are well-documented - start here and on the pod here.

Here’s what appears to have happened, per sources familiar w/ the Chetrit site: At some point, likely at Madison’s behest, Simon Dushinsky came in. Dushinsky is the co-founder of Rabsky Group and a principal at Sky Equity Group, through which he does most of his new ventures. Dushinsky already has a strong relationship w/ Madison, which successfully exited a Downtown Brooklyn deal where it lent him $555M. Dushinsky is also familiar w/ Chetrit deals – Sky stepped into Chetrit’s UES condo project in ‘24 and later took full charge. When The Promote learned of Dushinsky’s involvement in the Cherry site, we turned to the data sleuths at PincusCo for an assist; PincusCo helped us locate an owner-attestation document from last year in DOB filings that confirms Dushinsky’s involvement:

Why does this matter for Bushburg? Well, a buyer would be loath to come into a site whose fate is tied to a parcel where the timeline is a total crapshoot (Stern’s) and another that’s in deep distress (Chetrit’s). Dushinsky’s involvement at 265 Cherry, per a source, gave Bushburg the confidence that it wouldn’t be going it alone on funding the required public improvements. Both 259 Clinton and 265 Cherry are eligible for the Affordable New York (the predecessor to 485-x) tax break; Bushburg can build a resi project of ≈600K sf. The firm didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Taken together, the Two Bridges sites allow for over 2,700 residential units, which would be a massive and much-needed boost for Manhattan’s housing stock. We’ll see if they can get done, or if the whole thing ends up being a bridge too far (sorry). 🌉 🌉

PS: Lower Manhattan’s heimish era extends well beyond Two Bridges. Goose Property Management, the firm run by the son-in-law of Rabsky co-founder Isaac Rabinowitz, is buying FiDi’s 45 Broad from Chinese firm Gemdale for a 300-unit rental, The Promote understands. It’s tapped Galaxy Capital’s Henry Bodek 👶 🔪 to find it $200M+ in debt. Meanwhile, Rabsky took over the Franklin St. assemblage of HAP Investments (led by the hapless Eran Polack).

PPS: Don’t miss our pod on Dushinsky’s maverick career. Bitachon!

We’ve riffed tons on the pod about the winner-take-most institutional CRE fundraising environment we’re in. Most shops, even brand-name ones, are finding the capital quest to be a painful and disappointing slog, leading to hung funds and scaled-back ambitions. But then there’s Tyler Henritze: The Blackstone cub (Insiders: See related BX exit analysis 🔒 ) and founder of Town Lane raised a whopping $1.25B for his debut fund in ‘24, putting that money together in just 9 mos., sans placement agents or IR team. He’s now gone and topped that, raising $1.9B in just 5 months, per PERE.

Town Lane’s deals include an acquisition of a Midtown Atlanta office tower/ in partnership w/ REIT Cousins, a 2.7M sf shallow-bay industrial acquisition from Corebridge, and a sr. housing platform (Arcole) launched last winter w/ Artemis alum Kelly Sheehy. Much of the capital for the new fund came from repeat investors. “At a time of increasing dislocation in the market, we are fortunate to be playing offense with ample capital,” Henritze told the publication. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. 🐯

Agency lenders believe that Fannie and Freddie will issue new multi lending licenses early next year, the first addition to the kitty since Fannie granted Basis Investment Group one in ‘22. Trades of the highly coveted licenses have been hot and heavy over the last year-and-a-half, and lenders told CMA they expect new players next year. Also, the publication reports that Freddie has told existing licensees it will look to wet its beak à la Fannie when trades happen, incl. on in-process deals such as Bayview/Morgan family’s purchase of a majority interest in BWE. The lenders feel both initiatives are being driven by the Trump administration and its instrument, Bill Pulte, who’s continuously shaken up the agencies since taking charge at the FHFA.

One major move to keep 👀 on is Lument: We reported earlier this month that the triple-threat lender is in talks to return home to the Hunt family, though no confirmation of that yet.

If you’re a player or striver in CRE private credit, you’ve watched as Apollo, using its insurance arm Athene as fuel, has rocketed to the top of the heap. Athene has topped CMA’s ranking of top insurer lenders in back-to-back years, and in January Apollo orchestrated a deal to sell its struggling mortgage REIT ARI to the insurer – why pose oiled-up for unsympathetic public investors when you can get far more 💗 in the private markets?

Apollo is now buying a piece of the mighty Abu Dhabi alts manager Mubadala Capital. It’s a deal that gets it even deeper into CRE capital stacks, particularly those of the distressed variety, as Mubadala Capital is the majority owner of Fortress.

Apollo is moving to buy a nearly 10% stake in Mubadala Capital, which is a subsidiary of the $385B SWF Mubadala. The two firms have been partners since ‘22, per CNBC, when they set up a platform to jointly originate both debt and equity deals. Last year, Mubadala Capital had a deal to sell a piece to Mark Walter’s TWG Global, per Bloomberg, but that transaction was held up amid a DoJ probe into Walter’s web of cos. (One of those cos. is Guggenheim Partners, whose CRE credit influence we mapped out in a recent issue for Insiders 🔒) and as of this summer no money had changed hands.

Promote Insiders: Read on 🔒 👇