Team closes 880 sales in 3 weeks.

How do you close 880 sales in three weeks? Just ask the team of lawyers from Jenkens & Gilchrist Parker Chapin LLP.

From Jan. 27 through Feb. 14, the team expected to complete pre-closing procedures for the sale of 880 units in??.

Ruppert Yorkville Towers on the Upper East Side. The mass closing sessions have been taking place in a 50,000-SF space the firm subleased from DoubleClick.net at 450 W. 33rd St. On Feb. 20, all 880 buyers will take title to their properties at the same time.

"There was an almost historic level of buying that was taking place," said Mitchel Hill, a real estate partner with Jenkens & Gilchrist, who has been overseeing the process.

With 1,258 units in four towers, Ruppert Yorkville Towers on Third Avenue between 90th and 92nd Streets was built under the Mitchell-Lama program and opened in 1975. It is owned by Yorkville Towers Associates, LLC whose general partner is an affiliate of the DeMatteis Organization in Uniondale, N.Y.

In 1998, the owners notified tenants that they planned to withdraw from the Mitchell-Lama program and repay $65 million in mortgage and other payments to the city. Tenants were worried about steep rent increases, so they sued.

Under an agreement reached between the owners and tenant association, tenants were offered the opportunity to purchase their units at reduced rates. As part of the agreement, some tenants will be allowed to continue renting their units at varying rents depending on income level.

Tenants had until late August to decide whether they intended to purchase their units at prices that ranged from $119,200 for a studio to $782,200 for a three-bedroom. 880 of the 1,258 tenants, or about 68%, accepted the offer.

With such a high level of interest, the owners were faced with a question. Should the closings be conducted over a six to seven-month period or should they be done all at once? The owners opted for the latter, despite the logistical challenges that it would pose, said Miles Borden, a real estate partner with Jenkens & Gilchrist, who has also been overseeing the process.

"It has tremendous benefits for the both the sponsor and the buyers of the units," Borden said.

Among the benefits is that the sponsor receives the proceeds from the sale in one lump sum, rather than in smaller amounts over a period of months. This makes planning for the building's future easier, Borden said.

Leonard Grunstein, another real estate partner at Jenkens & Gilchrist, had experience with orchestrating mass closing proceedings in the past, but it was with an apartment building that was being converted to coops. Although the owners of Ruppert Yorkville Towers faced different legal challenges with a condominium conversion, Grunstein was able to provide the vision for handling the mass closings.

There are about 50 people who are currently working at the West 33rd Street site, about 12 closing attorneys from Jenkins & Gilchrist; representatives from four title companies including Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Company, First American Title Insurance Company of New York, Stewart Title of New York, and New York Land Services, Inc.; representatives from New York Mortgage Co.; and workers that are manning the database and fax work stations. For the three-week period, there are 20 closing stations and closing sessions planned for 9 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. At peak times, about 15 to 17 closings are completed in an hour.

With the glut of sublease space currently on the market, Jenkens & Gilchrist figured that finding an adequate space for the operation wouldn't be a problem. Although there were plenty of 50,000-SF spaces to choose from, finding one with a large enough reception area was a problem. Most of the vestibules were 300 or 400 SF, too small to accommodate the number of people that could potentially pass through the space at a given time.

"There may be 100 people showing up within a short period of time," Borden said. "There could have been a bottle neck."

Through a contact at DoubleClick.net, they found the space and are happy with the level of security and other aspects of the building which is managed by Max Capital Management Corp. Jenkens & Gilchrist took possession of the space Jan. 20 and retrofitted it in a week, despite having to bring in fax and copy machines and other equipment.

Despite the level of coordination and planning required for the operation, Hill and Borden say the process has been going smoothly. Hill said he is looking forward to the next time he is involved in a closing procedure of this scale.

"We hope this can be a model for other Mitchell-Lama conversions," he said.