Steve Cuozzo

Steve Cuozzo

Real Estate

Seeking a posh spot in Flushing? This condo’s rights are for sale

If you crave a piece of Sky View Parc, the belatedly but decisively successful luxury condo-retail project in Flushing, this might be your chance.

Muss Development, a joint-venture partner with Onex Real Estate Partners, is putting giant Sky View’s unbuilt, second residential phase up for sale.

Muss is expected to put out a formal offering this week via Massey Knakal for development rights to Sky View Parc’s second trio of condo towers. The three additional towers, totaling 650,000 square feet, are planned to rise atop the complex’s 800,000 square-foot Skyview Center retail base, which is nearly 100 percent leased to stores including Nordstrom Rack, Marshall’s, Target and Best Buy.

“We have been retained by Muss to sell development rights to Phase 2,” Massey Knakal principal Robert Knakal told us.

However, Muss’ move seemed to take its partner by surprise.

Onex Real Estate Partners CEO Michael S. Dana, in consultation with his lawyer, Fried Frank real estate Chairman Jonathan Mechanic, told us: “Phase 1 turned out to be a tremendous success. We’re 100 percent committed to Flushing and to the second phase. We believe it will be even more successful than Phase 1.”

Dana said due to confidentiality rules, he could not comment on Muss’ action. But, “Onex is committed to proceeding to build phase 2” and hoped to begin construction in November.

Whatever’s going on between the partners, the Muss move is the latest twist in the project’s long and complicated history.

Sky View Parc spans 14 acres along College Point Blvd., a few minutes’ walk from downtown Flushing and the No. 7 subway line terminus. With a total 3.3 million square feet in the six planned towers plus the retail, it’s been Queens’ most-watched mixed-use project since its 2005 groundbreaking.

Knakal wouldn’t comment on what the offer might fetch. Industry sources speculated it could bring up to $150 million based on the sell-out success of the first three towers mainly to Chinese and Asian-American buyers.

But it was rough going previously. As we first reported, Onex took over operating control of the project in 2010 and pumped in an additional $70 million when Muss ran into financing trouble after work fell behind schedule. Onex also booted Muss construction subsidiary MBDC in favor of Tishman Construction.

Things were going so slowly that Onex temporarily called in Related Cos. as a consultant on condo sales and retail leasing, a role it no longer has.

Then, in June 2011, the development team had to refund 75 percent of prospective purchasers’ $5 million in down payments. By August 2011, a mere 45 of Phase 1’s 448 units had been sold.

Yet, Onex and Muss remained partners, and once the recession ended, Sky View Parc found traction with buyers from the Far East — ranking as 2013’s No. 1 condo-sale site in the city.

Now, rights to put up three more towers may be highly coveted in light of the Phase 1 sellout. In addition, Sky View Parc’s luxury amenities — including an elaborate spa and an elevated, landscaped private park with tennis and basketball courts — are all complete.

Reps for Muss declined to comment — but sources said the sale offering resulted when Onex offered to buy out Muss’s Phase 2 share for a price Muss deemed too low.

“Jason Muss showed the offer to Bob Knakal, and they agreed the development rights to Phase 2 were worth more,” an insider said. Under partnership terms, “If Onex offered them $100, Muss can try to sell it on the open market for $200,” an insider explained. What Onex offered to buy out Muss is not known.

Onex Real Estate Partners is a division of Toronto-based, private-equity giant Onex. Brooklyn-based Muss has developed over 15 million square feet of commercial and residential project in the five boroughs.


Hedge fund Taconic Capital Advisors is moving and expanding — leaving 450 Park Ave., where it had about 25,000 square feet, and moving into nearly 40,000 square feet at 280 Park Ave., a joint venture of Vornado and SL Green.

Terms were not available. Taconic was repped by Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s Rob Silver and Neil Goldmacher. The ownership was repped in-house by Vornado’s Glen Weiss and Andrew Ackerman. None of the brokers could be reached.