[NYguy]

http://therealdeal.com/blog/2012/04/...-within-month/

Judge to determine fate of Domino Sugar Factory within month
Developer says it will wait to complete the deal until the judge issues an injunction ruling


April 05, 2012
By David Jones

A state Supreme Court judge said she would rule on an injunction request at the struggling Domino Sugar Factory site in Williamsburg by May 4, after lawyers for developer CPC Resources and its main investment partner battled over a deal to sell the proposed $2 billion housing and retail project.
The dispute centers on the 11-acre site of the defunct Dominos sugar factory, on the Willliamsburg waterfront between South 5th and Grand streets, which CPC and Katan acquired for $55 million in 2004. The original plan called for the team to build more than 2,200 apartments, plus commercial office space, community organization space and retail stores as well as a promenade along the East River waterfront. The proposed site was originally slated to preserve 30 percent of the units for affordable housing. In the suit dated March 5, Katan alleges that CPC failed to get construction moving on the site...

Katan Group, the project’s main investment partner, filed suit last month seeking to block a deal to sell the project back to its lender, Pacific Coast Capital Partners. Katan, led by veteran developer Itzhak Katan, alleges that CPC has completely mismanaged the Dominos site and would see its equity diluted from 50 percent down to 8 percent if the sale was allowed to go through. “We’re focusing on the fact that they’re taking our ownership interests and giving it away,” Morrison Cohen attorney Y. David Scharf who represents Katan Group, told Judge Eileen Bransten at the hearing. The company also claims it has found a “white knight” investor that would buy the site on the same terms as the proposed CPC sale back to the bank, according to lawyers.

But, attorney Mark Walfish of Katsky Korins, representing CPC, launched a blistering array of charges against Katan, saying the injunction would result in a foreclosure against the project. He also said that CPC, as managing member of the entity that controls the project, only has the obligation to consult with Katan, and has the full authority to make final decisions on the project. “There is nothing we are doing that eviscerates their rights,” he told the court.