Along with attempt ing to downsize its budget and pension obligations, the city is looking to downsize its real estate.

“We have 1 million square feet too much,” Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith told the executives of the Real Estate Board of New York yesterday at the group’s holiday lunch at the Waldorf Astoria.

“We have to look at where we own, where we lease, the air rights and development rights and look broadly to return as much as possible to the private sector.”

As possible targets for trimming, Goldsmith observed, “There are 50 data centers — we need zero to two — there are 100 garages — and we need fewer.”

“We are in negotiations with two firms that would help the City the secure new leases, renegotiate existing leases, and consolidate space,” said a spokesman for the Mayor.

Additionally, Goldsmith is working to cut the friction between the industry and the Buildings Department as well as the costs for various business permits. “Now 20 agencies have a part and no one is really in control,” he said. “It is agonizing for you and difficult to watch.”

To do their jobs more efficiently, Goldsmith also envisions a general inspector equipped with an iPad. I guess we’ll soon get an app for that.

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While it is known that an IHOP is coming to Times Square, its corporate owners have not yet cooked up a location. One thing is for certain, the pancake house will not open in the former Knickerbocker Hotel at 1466 Broadway or 6 Times Square.

The former hotel is undergoing renovations and is co-owned by the new IHOP franchisee, Ashkenazy Acquisitions.

“That location is too expensive,” laughed Ashkenazy’s Michael Alpert , who said they have already started getting proposals for an IHOP from area owners.

Along with Manhattan, Ashkenazy’s IHOP territory encompasses Queens, Fairfield, Westchester, Bergen, Union, Essex and Morris counties.

“We are going to have the rest of the boroughs, soon,” said Alpert. “We put a team in place and will open 30 in the next three plus years.”

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CIM Group did more than halt the debt crisis at the Beaver House condominium at 15 William St.

Sources tell us it rolled up more debt and stepped into an ownership interest.

As The Post reported yesterday, CIM bought down the $60.066 million iStar debt on 209 of the building’s 334 units on which iStar remains a lender.

But a Blackstone fund, GSO Re Onshore, had also sued sponsor Tamir Sapir over a construction loan. On Nov. 24, GSO was awarded $66.2 million with the ability to pursue interest and lawyer’s fees.

That lien was then bought by an entity of CIM Group, which agreed last week to discontinue the court action.

According to sources, CIM also did a friendly foreclosure with the Sapir Organization and now also owns the 209 units. So far, no public documents have been filed and neither the Sapirs –who crowed immediately about last week’s Trump SoHo pact with CIM that left them in place — nor CIM reps have chosen to comment.

As was previously revealed by Curbed, during court proceedings last May over the Blackstone loan, Sapir’s lawyer Stephen Meister admitted that Alex Sapir was running the company and that his father, Tamir, had been suffering from a speech and mental disorder for at least a decade and it was unclear what he actually understood, even though he had signed his name to guarantee loan documents.

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In other CIM news, sources tell us the LA-based fund that also partnered with Harry Macklowe at the Drake site has reached a confidential settlement with its retail tenant, Franck Muller.

The watchmaker did not want to move out of the tony, East 57th Street townhouse that sits across from the Four Seasons Hotel. But it is circled for demolition as part of the planned Drake redevelopment.

“Assume the tenant will be moving out [after the holidays],” said one source familiar with the terms of the mediation agreement. Lawyers for both sides declined to comment, and a wrap-up court hearing is scheduled for next year.

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Chelsea art galleries are going to be in trouble when they start renewing their 10-year leases over the next few years, says not-for-profit broker specialist Suzanne Sunshine of S. Sunshine & Associates.

One of her clients, the non- profit Cue Art Foundation, received a 2012 re newal proposal that will double its overall rent and drive it out of the neighborhood, Sunshine said.

The new rent would jump from an all-inclusive $28 a foot to around $120 a foot for the ground-floor space alone. [email protected]