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Ground Zero Mosque stirs in the grave: Shady Park 51 developer buys next-door building for $8 million

Apr 25, 2013 7:58 am By Robert Spencer

El_Marco_0007.jpgGround Zero Mosque freedom rally hosted by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer — we’ll be back, Sharif

Sharif el-Gamal, who famously opined that “when you beat up someone physically you get exercise & stress relief,” was evicted from his SoHo office over $39,000 in back rent, and was found to owe $21,000 in fines on a property with 13 violations, along with other unanswered questions about his financial dealings. So how is it that he is still operating, and where did he get this $8 million?

“He now controls three properties next to each other on the same block.” It came out in December, as I noted in a PJ Media piece, that “one year after the notorious Park51 ‘community center’ opened ‘with great fanfare,’ it was ‘now an empty space with no community programs.'” The New York Post reported: “What’s more, while the developers behind Park51 insisted for two years that the project was more than a mosque, it now appears to be just that. Dozens of worshipers gather at the site on Park Place Friday for prayer services “” but that’s the only activity in the building.”

That was the ignominious denouement of the institution that its developer, Sharif El-Gamal, once boasted would soon be “the most famous community center in the whole world.” El-Gamal wasn’t the only one boasting: when Park51 officially opened in 2011, reporters from all over the world contacted Pamela Geller and me, as the leaders of the national opposition to the Ground Zero mosque, asking us for comment on the “fact” that we had “lost,” that the “community center” was opening despite our opposition.

But this was a case of a defeated side declaring victory and getting out, a la Vietnam. There is no triumphal mosque at Ground Zero. Pamela Geller and I defeated it. But it looks from this as if Sharif El-Gamal hasn’t given up. And neither have we. If he moves forward with the triumphal mosque, we will back with the tens of thousands of protesters we brought to Ground Zero in 2010 and 2011.

“Park51 Developer Buys Next-Door Building for $8 Million,” by James Fanelli for DNAinfo, April 24 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

DOWNTOWN “” The developer behind Park51, the planned Islamic cultural center two blocks from the World Trade Center, is turning a Manhattan street into a game of Monopoly.

Sharif El-Gamal recently bought a five-story building adjacent to the controversial project for $8 million, city records show. With the purchase of 43 Park Place, he now controls three properties next to each other on the same block.

With the help of a $7 million mortgage, El-Gamal bought the latest building under the shell company 43 Park Place Partners Corp., city records show. The sale was recorded Jan. 23.

In July 2009 he and his partners paid nearly $5 million for 45-47 Park Place, a former Burlington Coat Factory store that was heavily damaged on 9/11. His group also leases 51 Park Place from Con Edison. Those buildings comprise Park51.

The latest property is a commercial building that’s home to the Dakota Roadhouse bar, a bakery and other businesses.

So far El-Gamal hasn’t won over his new tenants, some of which have been worrying about their future in the building. His real estate management company, Soho Properties, has offered buyouts to at least two tenants, but the amounts were too little to make the move worth it, sources said.

Tenants have also griped about the building’s upkeep.

Its elevator has been out of service for the past two weeks, and SoHo Properties has been slow to address the problem, sources said. One worker with a broken foot has been forced to climb five flights of stairs to get to her office, a source said.

“It’s definitely a nuisance,” a source said. Tenants have also complained about water pressure problems on certain floors and lack of heat.

El-Gamal did not return a call for comment on his plans for the building.

El-Gamal has worked in real estate for more than a decade, but at least a half dozen of his deals have been bogged down by lawsuits and allegations of owed money.

In 2011, Con Edison threatened to evict Park51 because it hadn’t paid $1.7 million in rent. El-Gamal later sued the utility, claiming it overvalued the property and miscalculated rent. A Manhattan Supreme Court judge sided with Con Ed’s appraisal, but the litigation has continued.

Last week Khalil Sikander, an investor in two Washington Heights residential buildings, sued El-Gamal in Manhattan Supreme Court, accusing Soho Properties of mismanaging the properties, withholding account information and not paying its bills.

Sikander claims El-Gamal’s firm didn’t keep accurate records, failed to rent apartments and used inexperienced and unlicensed contractors to perform work on the buildings.

“He didn’t pay bills,” Sikander’s lawyer, Claude Castro, said. “We want to look at the books and records. We want an accounting. We want to see why these bills have not been paid.”

In 2012, El-Gamal filed a lawsuit against Sikander, accusing him of poorly repairing another Washington Heights residential building they had worked on together.

Park51 has been El-Gamal’s most ambitious real estate project yet “” but so far the biggest disappointment.

In 2010 he weathered a political firestorm over the proximity of Ground Zero to a mosque inside 45-47 Park Place. He then unveiled an ambitious plan to build a $140 million Islamic center at the property that would provide prayer space, cultural programs, daycare and a 9/11 memorial.

Park51 officially opened in September 2011 with a photo exhibit of children from around the world, but since then little progress has been made. Construction hasn’t begun on El-Gamal’s grand vision of a 15-story glass building at the site.

Park51’s chief of staff, Katerina Lucas, left more than a year ago and has not been replaced. She declined a request for comment.

While the mosque still holds daily prayer services, the center’s cultural programs have all but ceased. Park51’s website doesn’t appear to have been updated since last spring, with its main page advertising a class on Islamic calligraphy that took place in April 2012. Its last tweet “” a call asking for an intern “” was posted in June 2012.

A class on Capoeira, a Brazilian martial arts dance, remains the only cultural program up and running in the center, according to the class instructor, Luz Emma Canas Jesus.

“We’ve been there for two years,” she said. “We’ve been the consistent program. They’ve had other programs come and go. We’ve been there.”

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