Robert Khodadadian – The Real Deal

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has his sights set south of Dallas.

After making a bold land grab in Waxahachie two years ago, Jerry Jones’ investment and development firm Blue Star Land is starting construction on an industrial center at the 120-acre site. The 638,000 square foot warehouse will be built just off the intersection of Interstate 35E and Highway 287, across from the Waxahachie Civic Center.  

The build will cost $29 million, or about $45 per square foot, to build and is scheduled to start this August and last until next summer, according to a filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.

The warehouse will likely serve as an e-commerce fulfillment center for sports merchandise company Fanatics, as reported by the Dallas Morning News. The warehouse will create nearly 250 jobs, according to the outlet. 

This is the first step in what will be Blue Star Land’s first significant mixed-use project south of Dallas. Jones’ firm plans to develop the 120 acres in partnership with Lincoln Property Company. Their plans include a 70-acre business park with residential, industrial, retail and commercial buildings. 

Blue Star Land is best known for the Dallas Cowboys’ $1.5 billion Star development in Frisco but has been busy with investment and development projects across Dallas-Fort Worth. The company is entrenched north of Dallas in Prosper with the 500-acre Gates of Prosper project, which will be the largest mixed-use development in the suburb. The firm is also planning 500 apartments, retail and a park at another Prosper site. 

Blue Star has been active in the industrial market as well. The firm sold off three industrial properties  at the Star Business Park late last year to Lincoln Property Company, and it has other warehouse developments planned across Collin and Denton counties. 

Waxahachie is the seat of Ellis County and is located about 30 miles south of Dallas. The city has been popular for developers in recent years as the northern Dallas market becomes saturated. Waxahachie has doubled its population to over 43,000 in the past two decades and issued more than 1,000 building permits for homes last year, according to the city’s Economic Development Department. 

Popular Texas grocery chain H-E-B is also expanding its Waxahachie store by 127,000 square feet with renovations set to complete next year. 

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 Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has his sights set south of Dallas. After making a bold land grab in Waxahachie two years ago, Jerry Jones’ investment and development firm Blue Star Land is starting construction on an industrial center at the 120-acre site. The 638,000 square foot warehouse will be built just off the intersection
The post Jerry Jones wades into Waxahachie with industrial development appeared first on The Real Deal.  Uncategorized, Blue Star Land, Dallas, Dallas Cowboys, Industrial, Jerry Jones, Waxahachie The Real Deal 

Robert Khodadadian has long had a simple philosophy about selling real estate. There are approximately a million buildings in the city, and the broker that gets to sell any one among the multitude that will hit the auctioning block at a given moment is, sometimes, simply the person who happens to pitch their services to the right seller.

Robert Khodadadian – The Real Deal

An eight year legal drama in Gowanus is wrapping up with a foreclosure.

Marvin Azrak’s Maguire Capital Group, an active player in distressed New York City real estate, has stepped in to overtake the foreclosure at 255 Butler, the site of a drawn out battle between the Akkad family and Sam Boymelgreen, son of controversial New York developer Jeshayahu “Shaya” Boymelgreen.

The ownership group shares the same name as its address. The 99,500-square-foot property belongs to family members Ariel Akkad, Nathan Akkad, Solomon Akkad and Benjamin Akkad.

On June 15, Maguire purchased a note from Cathay Bank with a principal of $11 million secured by the 255 Butler group.

The swap came two months after Cathay, the Akkad family’s original lender, filed their own pre-foreclosure action for $8 million weeks after the family failed to make payments on their loan in the wake of a dramatic lawsuit, which ended in a $36 million judgment in favor of Boymelgreen in March.

Azrak declined to comment on the purchase.

The Akkad family acquired the property in 2013 with an $11 million mortgage from Cathay Bank. Shortly afterward, Sam Boymelgreen then stepped into the picture, signing a 49-year lease on the property with initial plans to convert the empty warehouse into a hotel.

Instead, after investing some $8 million into the property, a new opportunity emerged. Coworking giant WeWork offered to sublease the property from Boymelgreen in a 15-year agreement, flipping the 100-year-old space into an office share.

But the Akkad family didn’t like that. After hearing of the arrangement, the family allegedly began working to cut Boymelgreen out of the arrangement, according to a legal complaint, looking to benefit from the WeWork lease directly.

By July 2015, the Akkad family had slapped Boymelgreen with notices of default, claiming his firm had failed to pay taxes on the property and that the proposed multi-unit commercial property did not fulfill the requirements of the original lease.

The notices spooked WeWork and left Boymelgreen unable to operate the property, the lawsuit alleged, costing his firm tens of millions of dollars.

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The post Maguire Capital takes over foreclosure at 255 Butler in Gowanus appeared first on The Real Deal.

 An eight year legal drama in Gowanus is wrapping up with a foreclosure. Marvin Azrak’s Maguire Capital Group, an active player in distressed New York City real estate, has stepped in to overtake the foreclosure at 255 Butler, the site of a drawn out battle between the Akkad family and Sam Boymelgreen, son of controversial
The post Maguire Capital takes over foreclosure at 255 Butler in Gowanus appeared first on The Real Deal.  Uncategorized The Real Deal 

Robert Khodadadian has long had a simple philosophy about selling real estate. There are approximately a million buildings in the city, and the broker that gets to sell any one among the multitude that will hit the auctioning block at a given moment is, sometimes, simply the person who happens to pitch their services to the right seller.

Robert Khodadadian – The Real Deal

Former Navillus CEO Donal O’Sullivan was given six months in prison for his role in a scheme that prosecutors say cheated construction unions out of more than $1 million.

O’Sullivan was sentenced on Friday and ordered to report to prison term on Nov. 13. His sister, Helen O’Sullivan, the firm’s former treasurer, was also sentenced this week to two years of probation.

Navillus’ former comptroller, Padraig Naughton, faces one year in prison. Restitution in the case has not yet been determined, though the judge found that the unions lost out on $1.2 million.

“The sentences reflect the Court’s understanding of the context of the case given Donal and Helen’s lifelong service to others,” Ilene Jaroslaw, an attorney for O’Sullivan, said in a statement. “Both Donal and Helen are fundamentally good people who still have more to contribute to the good of society.”

The trio were convicted in October 2021 on multiple counts of wire fraud, mail fraud, embezzlement from employee benefits funds, submission of false remittance reports to union benefits funds and conspiracy to commit those crimes.

The three were accused of scheming to avoid making payments to union benefit funds between 2011 and 2017. Despite having a collective bargaining agreement that required the use of union labor and contributions to the unions’ benefit funds, the trio funneled more than $7.2 million to a consulting firm, Allied, for construction work that it did not perform, authorities said.

Allied then paid certain Navillus employees with these funds, hiding hours worked by those employees from the union benefit funds.

In a sentencing memorandum on O’Sullivan’s behalf, his attorneys enumerated his charity work over the years and said he gained respect in the industry as he built up Navillus from a tile and masonry business launched in the late 1980s. The firm eventually grew to one of the city’s largest concrete contractors, performing work for signature towers such as SL Green Realty’s One Vanderbuilt.

“Donal spent his life building a company that grew from a small subcontractor to an important New York City construction company, providing employment and opportunities to thousands of working men and women — and since his arrest he can work there no longer,” his attorneys wrote.

“Taking this away from me was like taking a child away from its mother; that’s what it felt like after my indictment,” O’Sullivan said, according to his lawyers.

The memorandum also calls the case “highly unusual,” pointing to other fraud cases against construction giants that did not result in any criminal charges against individuals.

In a sentencing memo, prosecutors point to the “brazen, methodical, and long-running nature of the criminal scheme.” They also scold O’Sullivan for downplaying the case as a “breach-of-contract civil dispute.”

“This is not a situation involving a bona fide dispute over the terms of a particular [collective bargaining agreement]. The defendant and his co-conspirators deliberately and painstakingly hid a portion of their payroll from the Benefits Funds for the sake of avoiding contribution payments for a period of years,” the memo states.

Unions whose benefit funds involved in the case include New York City District Council of Carpenters, Cement Masons, Mason Tenders, International Brotherhood of Teamsters 282, Cement and Concrete Workers District Council, Bricklayers and Allied Craft Workers Local Union No. 1 and the Pointers, Cleaners and Caulkers.

Navillus is now led by Colin Mathers, who had been chief operating officer.

The company emerged from bankruptcy in 2018 after settling what was considered a significant union lawsuit. In 2017, a federal judge ruled in favor of five union benefit and pension funds that had accused Navillus of using an alter-ego company owned by O’Sullivan’s brother, Kevin, to evade agreements to use union labor on its projects.

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The post Ex-Navillus CEO sentenced to prison in union scheme appeared first on The Real Deal.

 Former Navillus CEO Donal O’Sullivan was given six months in prison for his role in a scheme that prosecutors say cheated construction unions out of more than $1 million. O’Sullivan was sentenced on Friday and ordered to report to prison term on Nov. 13. His sister, Helen O’Sullivan, the firm’s former treasurer, was also sentenced
The post Ex-Navillus CEO sentenced to prison in union scheme appeared first on The Real Deal.  Uncategorized, Construction, Crime, Navillus The Real Deal 

Robert Khodadadian has long had a simple philosophy about selling real estate. There are approximately a million buildings in the city, and the broker that gets to sell any one among the multitude that will hit the auctioning block at a given moment is, sometimes, simply the person who happens to pitch their services to the right seller.