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Spitzer Saga Continues: Ex-Gov Pays $88 M To Erect Building

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Eliot Spitzer acquired property in Hudson Yards lot.
Eliot Spitzer acquired property in Hudson Yards lot.
Disgraced New York ex-governor Eliot Spitzer has found a second-calling since his failed bid for city controller. He has landed safely back in what may have initially been his first calling before he embarked into the world of politics.

He is now turning to Spitzer Enterprises, which is his family real estate company. Spitzer repeatedly licks his wounds from within the safe confines of this company, as the Daily News reported recently that he also took refuge at the real estate business of his family’s after his resignation as New York governor following a prostitution scandal in 2008.

It has been reported that the former governor has paid $88 million for a development site on Manhattan’s far West Side, as reflected by city records that were filed on Thursday, December 26, 2013.

According to the Daily News, the plot of land he purchased is L-shaped and located between 35th and 36th Streets in Manhattan off of 10th Avenue. The lot is zoned to accommodate as much as 414,000 square feet of new development.

The daily News and the New York Post are speculating that the space can be used for either an office building or a hotel that reaches at least 25 stories.

The property, which only came on the market in mid-November, was pursued by “the biggest guys in town,” Robert Knakal, chairman of Massey Knakal Realty Services, who represented both Spitzer and the seller, Alloy Dev, told the News. But Spitzer snatched up the property quickly.

“Just like my father, I’m looking for prime assets in prime areas,” Spitzer told the News back in September even as he was running for controller.

The area, known as the Hudson Yards, is continuing to develop and may indeed become a prime location in the coming years, especially as the third phase of the High Line is completed. Also in this soon-to-be “prime” real estate area is the four-year renovation of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, a project which was initially launched by then-Governor Spitzer.

Furthermore, Mayor Bloomberg’s victory ride on the extension of the No. 7 subway from Times Square to 11th Ave. and 34th St. is only one block from Spitzer’s new purchase.

Alloy is reportedly pleased with the deal. The firm paid $24 million for the property in 2007, which the News reported was one year before the city rezoned the area.

‘We enjoyed seeing the neighborhood mature since our acquisition in 2007. Now we’re excited to be focusing on new neighborhoods in a new administration,” the company told the News.

In February, with Knakal’s help, Spitzer Enterprises paid $30 million for a row of shops in Soho, in the ground floor of a glassy new condo development, 350 West Broadway. The News reported that this is the only other Manhattan-based deal Spitzer has made since taking over the daily operations of his family’s business.

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