NY Post: 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:
DIDN’T HAVE A PRAYER: Developer Kevin Glodek (inset) is seething after he missed out on buying the property (above) near Ground Zero in favor of Sharif El-Gamal.
Read more at NY Post >> here
Some observations at Jihad Watch:
Every day brings new revelations of how shady and dishonest the leaders of the Ground Zero mega-mosque initiative are, and how fishy the whole endeavor has been from the beginning. “Mosque building owners nixed $18M offer before taking $4.8M one,” by Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein in the New York Post, September 5:
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.
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….
From NMAGZ: Imam Rauf, Daisy Khan, the el-Gamals feel it was divine intervention that led them to this iconic building. Looking at a map of the area, there really was no other building available (lot-s) to place their flag of conquest: Cordoba House .
Parallel to 45-47 Park Place is two large full block buildings And the one facing the GZ pit is a US post Office.
Iconic, divinely ordained….it had to be 45-47 Park Place; they must have made a deal the owners ‘couldn’t refuse’:
Fredo: Hey, Mike, are you sure about that? I mean, Moe, loves the business. He never said anything to me about sellin’.
Michael: I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.
