Tesla’s car exhibit at the Shops at Columbus Circle is giving way to a candy cornucopia.

A newly constructed mini-store of 220 square feet will house the first East Coast gourmet candy store for the Beverly Hills-based Sugarfina.

Co-founders Rosie O’Neill and Josh Resnick had dreamed of opening a candy boutique since their third date, when they viewed the original “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” starring Gene Wilder.

At the time, O’Neill was a marketing director for Barbie, while Resnick was the co-founder of video game developer Pandemic Studios.

The candy connoisseurs have since traveled the globe to source unique artisan gourmet offerings that will be doled out by highly trained candy concierges starting Oct. 23.

Josh Podell of Podell Real Estate Advisors represented the candy house in the deal directly signed with Related Cos. just in time for Halloween treats.


Allianz Real Estate of America has purchased Lubert-Adler’s 95 percent stake in the long-term lease for 114 Fifth Ave. in the Flatiron District. L&L will remain as the operating partner in the deal that closed Tuesday.

The $210 million transaction was marketed by investment brokers Woody Heller of Savills Studley along with Adam Spies, Douglas Harmon, Kevin Donner and Adam Doneger of Eastdil Secured.

L&L, led by David Levinson and Robert Lapidus, reinvented 114 Fifth from top to bottom and leased to tenants that include MasterCard International, Gawker and Lululemon.

“We like the location of the building and what the joint venture has done,” said Christoph Donner chief executive officer of Allianz Real Estate of America, on its reasons for the investment.

“The tenant mix is strong with new-generation tenants combined with strong-credit tenants. It’s the location; it’s the quality of the building and the strength of the New York City office market.”

Allianz invests for Allianz Insurance and is looking to grow the partnership, Donner added.


Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village just broke its own world-record price with a nearly $5.5 billion tag on the new deal for the middle-class enclave.

The sale beats the $5.4 billion Tishman Speyer Properties paid for it back in 2006.

Blackstone and Ivanhoe Cambridge are both stewards of pensioners capital and similar in style to Met Life, which originally developed the projects.

The venture’s agreement with the city to keep almost half of the units with moderately affordable workforce rents will mean the remaining market-rate units will instead become the cash cows. The 140,000 square feet of retail tenants are also expected to pay more as leases roll.

TSP also put in almost $30 million in capital improvements to the two projects that have 11,241 apartments in 110 buildings sited around grassy areas between East 14th and 23rd streets and from First Avenue to FDR Drive. The low-leverage deal works out to roughly $490,000 per unit and $540 per square foot.

“This is a poster child for how to structure a complex, long-term deal that satisfies many stakeholders,” said one real estate executive on condition of anonymity.

The purchase from CWCapital, which foreclosed on TSP when the value dipped to under $2 billion, will close by the end of the year and was orchestrated by Eastdil Secured’s Douglas Harmon, who also put Google on the map at 111 Eighth Ave.

A new Web site at Stuytownpetercooper.com is already up and running.


The Vanbarton Group, led by Gary Tischler and Richard Coles, is selling Studio Square at 35-37 36th St. in Astoria to a Brooklyn-based real estate family for nearly $70 million.

The industrial repositioning project that was purchased by Vanbarton for $29.2 million a year ago is now home to its infamous Beer Garden, with 56,000 square feet occupied by WeWork and another floor by the Miami Ad School.

The direct sale will close next year, but no one would return requests for comment.