If Donald Trump has his way, orphaned Manhattan apartment complex Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village could one day be called TrumpTown.
The Post has learned that the real estate mogul and TV personality has thrown his hat into the ring to either buy or manage the massive apartment complex, whose fate was cast into doubt this week when owners Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock said they would hand over the keys to the 11,000-unit property to creditors after defaulting on a loan payment earlier this month.
“People have asked us if we would get involved in running it or buying it,” Trump said in a telephone interview. “We are looking at it right now very seriously.”
“No one has a better track record running properties,” he added.
Meanwhile, The Post has learned that Boston-based WinnCompanies, the country’s eighth-largest apartment manager, is vying to be StuyTown’s property manager. Such an assignment would give Winn entry into the New York market, said a person close to the company.
Both Trump and Winn join a growing list of real estate firms interested in getting their hooks into StuyTown, which has become a high-profile symbol of the real estate market’s boom and bust.
Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross was among the first to put his name into the ring, teaming up with investment shop Centerbridge Partners and real estate titan Richard LeFrak, whose properties include Newport in New Jersey and LeFrak City in Queens.
“Richard has more experience managing rent-controlled and rent-stabilized properties than anyone else,” Ross told The Post earlier this week.
Tenants are also hoping to get in on the action, while Ofer Yardeni’s Stonehenge Partners, an unsuccessful bidder in 2006, has been mulling a bid to manage or acquire the complex, a source said.
Rose Associates, Related Cos. and Prudential Douglas Elliman are each said to be interested in managing the property.
The potential for a bidding war caps what has been a wild ride ever since Tishman and BlackRock bought StuyTown for $5.4 billion. Tishman had hoped to convert what were rent-regulated apartments to market rates, but ran into trouble as the credit markets collapsed and tenants resisted the higher rents.
Then in October everything fell apart when the state’s highest court ruled Tishman could not raise rents on the apartments.
Regardless of who takes over the property, the new owner could be on the hook to pay back an estimated $200 million in rent overages tied to that court case.
Alex Schmidt, the attorney representing the tenants in the case, says the new owners will be responsible for the back rents unless they hammer out a deal with Tishman and former owners MetLife to foot the tab.
“There’s no doubt that the subsequent owner has to assume this liability,” he said.