Paulson Ex Machina.

Everyone one goes home happy, and in the shade. Goldman Sachs is apparently moving quickly to secure the goodwill of the BPCA (Battery Park City Authority), CB1, PS 234, and any other acronym-rich semi-public authority by issuing a catch-all million dollar payoff. Follow the money: Goldman wants to build a new tower on this side of the Hudson, since apparently they won’t be using much of the one just across the border in Jersey City. The BPCA requires “every building constructed under its auspices include ample community space” which is news to us, unless Applebee’s and the UA Battery Park is considered ‘community space.’ Goldman, which likes its facilities tighter than some unmentionable part of a nun, wants no part of this quasi-socialist mandate (or they really don’t want an Applebee’s). Just across the (West) street, Scott Resnick is looking to build one of those nasty residential towers a la Costas Kondylis, and PS 234 is jazzed up cause they want their kids to be able to play in the sunlight or something. They are looking for a Community Center (which is inevitably a non-partisan haven from real estate finagling), but the razor thin margin on $2,000/sq ft. condos is making it a tough nut to crack. In steps the beneficent GS, which needs some good press this week. They write a check for a nice, round, million dollars, which, given the stated desire for a 18,000 sq ft of Community Center, means that a whopping $55/sq ft is being donated. Since GS is building as of right, and the BPCA never met a developer they wouldn’t bend over for, it’s still an order of magnitude more than Resnick has offered: the final sale cost for his site has yet to be revealed, and the implicit subsidy from the city (given the rumored below market agreement in place) makes one large large seem positively misery.

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