New York Post
September 5, 2010

The original owners of the Ground Zero mosque site mysteriously spurned dozens of higher bids before selling the prime downtown real estate at a bargain-basement price.

The Pomerantz family, which had owned the building since the late 1960s and fielded offers after the patriarch died in 2006, rejected at least one bid that was nearly four times what prospective mosque builder Sharif El-Gamal eventually paid, The Post has learned.

El-Gamal did offer what could be viewed as a sweetener to his $4.8 million bid in July 2009 –– a job as a property manager for a son of the family, Sethian Pomerantz.

'TEARDROP' MAY FALL

New York developer Kevin Glodek was livid when he found out the building sold for a fraction of what he offered in 2007 –– $18 million cash –– and wondered whether money changed hands under the table, according to sources close to the deal.

Glodek and his partners wanted to build a 60-story condo tower with retail space on the Park Place site, had inked a purchase agreement and even had keys to the existing building, according to sources and documents obtained by The Post.

But Kukiko Mitani –– whose late husband, Stephen Pomerantz, owned the property –– and her brother-in-law, Melvin Pomerantz, a trustee to the estate, went silent at the end of 2007 and Glodek's deal disappeared, sources said.

Glodek, who owns the ChefsDiet food delivery service and several Manhattan properties, declined to comment.

The property is now at the heart of one of the most divisive issues in the country –– whether it should be the location of a $100 million mosque and community center. The location two blocks from Ground Zero has been called insensitive, and questions have been raised about whether extremists will help fund the project. Recent polls show that 70 percent of New Yorkers want it moved.

El-Gamal had his eye on the property for years before buying it in 2009.

He was not alone in his interest, with some 30 offers showered on the Pomerantz family in what was an overheated downtown real-estate market in 2007, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.

Yet Mitani previously told The Post the building, a former Burlington Coat Factory store that was damaged in the 9/11 attacks, was a tough sell. She said she was in debt and desperate to unload it after her husband's death and insisted she had no buyers other than El-Gamal.

Some of the offers were a mere flash in the pan, but others were legitimate, including a $17 million cash deal from one developer, the source said.

The attraction in this hot market was buying real estate that could be demolished, the source said. A second downtown mosque, not affiliated with El-Gamal, considered spending $18 million for 45-47 Park Place in early 2008.

But the Pomerantz family –– for reasons that remain unclear –– rejected the offers.

They took 70 percent less from El-Gamal than what Glodek offered.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/mosque_was_steal_FpzwdRCdb5MdehzkDDWY3H#ixzz0yrsBVfwe

VERY Interesting.

A trustee failing to obtain market value for estate property seems like a clear case of breach of fiduciary duty.

My shocked face

oooh yeah, and if they get dinged with money under the table and not paying taxes on it...

O RLY?

Go figure

yep

I will not continue on as i may displease the ministry of truth here on arf



 

Indeed it is

Lying.

This could get interesting.

Want to bet  this "Pomerantz family" is a hope and change group of folk.

impossible.

i've been assured this is about "religious freedom" and not about thumbing america in the eye.

I'm betting he offered cash under the table because the imam didn't want the cash he was paying with traced back to its origins.

Why isn't the MSM picking up on this story?  I think the NY crowd does not want you to know who the real funders for Mosque Zero are.  Just an educated hunch.

If something is weirdo or doesnt make sence the most likely cause of the problem somewhere along the line is money.

Who was the grantor of the trust?  Herself or her husband?

If she's both grantor and trustee, I don't see what the big deal is.

If she's trustee and the trust names someone else as the property owner, then yeah.  She might be in deep doo doo.


Not a lawyer, but I have stayed in several very nice holiday inn express hotels.

Sounds like an argument to wheel out Kelo vs London and take the property on the basis that a higher price and more development would benefit the public in greater tax revenue.

Yes, indeed. Since they won with Kelo, we might at least use it against them.

Why would jewish new yorkers want to sell to a muslim Imam –– at a below market price –– regarding a piece of property as potentially controversial as this.

Just re-enforces my feelings that this is not about freedom of religion and diversity, but about building a trophy

Yeah... who'd have ever guessed?

I'd like to see them dig up some under the table money moving, and shit them all in jail for it. That would be a good end to it.

Ummmm.  Let me guess.  They got paid the rest of the money outside the US in some tax haven?

I don't know what amazes me more - me reading about that for the first time (Kelo V London case) yesterday or reading about it here today less than 24 hours later. Tan Pontiac syndrome, I guess.

interesting...i was just thinking it was for tax purposes.


Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

That is one possibility. It's also a crime.

A second possibility is that they don't really like money and are just stupid. I'd say this is unlikely.

And a third possibility is that the Pomerantzes are a family of left wing diversity-obsessed kooks. And would be happy to take less if it pissed off a lot of their fellow Americans. I actually know people like this.

what does it matter who she sells her property to?

Because [rage]BLAJRLHGAHLHALHL!!![/rage]

Or they're Leftist eltiists who want to poke a finger into the eye of typical White people.

tag

Audit time................

Oh...those motherFUCKERS. So they DO have an agenda.

The story plot, it thickens...

this, it was known

fishy

I could believe this.



 

In Florida, I don't think churches pay property taxes. If it's the same way up there, then it wouldn't benefit the new owners to have paid $5 on the books vs $900B on the books. At least from that perspective.

It would benefit the seller to have a whole bunch of cash laying around tax free though. Not that I disagree though, fucking taxes are unbelievable.

Who cares about this story.  If you want to bitch about a mosque being two blocks from ground zero maybe you should of bought the land and done something else with it.  You guys constantly preach indiviual freedoms as long as its something you agree with.  If the mosque meets all zoning requirements I have no issue with it.

D'ya think so?

No... it's just that you're racist against brown people.  

Derp derp... someone DID try to buy it and make something that would have contributed to the economy with it... apparently the previous owners thought it reasonable to accept 75% less than his offer and sell it to the religion of peace agitators.

It was their choice to sell it to whoever they wanted.

Shhhh.

You just MIGHT be on double secret probation...(you don't know, because it's SECRET).

Nobody is arguing that. We are just interested in the motive.



 

Nobody gives a damn who they sell it to as long as they pay the same taxes that everyone else does.

It sure as hell looks like they had offers 4x higher, and that should raise a red flag for all but the densest cementheads.

Oh snap son!

so the theory is that they sold it at a discount because the sellers are Muslims?

There is a good chance the REAL story behind all this is money related and not religion related.