By CHARLES V. BAGLI NY TIMES
Disque D. Deane, a financier and real estate investor who at one time controlled the General Motors Building, shopping centers in New York, Massachusetts and Georgia, and the nation’s largest federally subsidized housing complex, Starrett City in Brooklyn, died on Nov. 8 at his home in Boston. He was 89.
The cause was pneumonia, his nephew, Curt Deane, said.
Mr. Deane, who had a reputation as a shrewd and combative investor, kept a stuffed white Alaskan timber wolf in his office as “a reminder,” he once said, “that you should always keep your organization lean and hungry.” A wolf also adorned the letterhead of his company, Corporate Property Investors, symbolizing both his lone wolf approach to investing and the dog-eat-dog world in which he operated.
“He was a very tough negotiator,” Donald J. Trump, a partner in the Starrett City complex, said, “but an amazing real estate mind.”
Mr. Deane may be best known for assembling a group of investors in 1972 to back the development of Starrett City, the largest publicly assisted rental complex in the nation, with 5,881 apartments in 46 buildings. The complex, which overlooks Jamaica Bay and has its own power plant, post office and stores, is regarded as a successful example of economically and racially diverse housing.
Mr. Deane’s partnership, Starrett City Associates, officially changed the name of the complex in 2002 to Spring Creek Towers, though it remained known as Starrett City.
In 2006 and 2007, at the top of the real estate market, Mr. Deane and his partners twice tried to sell the vast property, much to the chagrin of tenants, housing activists and many public officials who feared that long-term residents would be replaced by new tenants paying higher rents.
City, state and federal officials subsequently struck a deal to refinance the complex, enabling it to remain affordable to poor and working-class New Yorkers while the partners made an estimated $200 million profit.
Disque Dee Deane was born on July 6, 1921. He grew up in New York City, attended Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan and Duke University.
He was a senior partner at the Lazard Freres investment bank, where he was active in corporate financing through real estate transactions.
In 1971, Mr. Deane formed Corporate Property Investors, one of the largest real estate investment trusts of its time. The company built a number of shopping centers, including the Roosevelt Field mall on Long Island, the Burlington Mall in Burlington, Mass., and Lenox Square in Atlanta.
Through his philanthropy, he supported the Deane Laboratories in Neurobiology at Duke University and the Deane Institute for Integrated Research on Atrial Fibrillation and Stroke at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Mr. Deane is survived by his wife, Carol, and their two children, Anne and Carl; five children from two prior marriages that ended in divorce, Hare Stuart, Marjorie Swain, Kathryn Deane, Disque Jr., and Walter; and several grandchildren.
Disque D. Deane, a financier and real estate investor who at one time controlled the General Motors Building, shopping centers in New York, Massachusetts and Georgia, and the nation’s largest federally subsidized housing complex, Starrett City in Brooklyn, died on Nov. 8 at his home in Boston. He was 89.
The cause was pneumonia, his nephew, Curt Deane, said.
Mr. Deane, who had a reputation as a shrewd and combative investor, kept a stuffed white Alaskan timber wolf in his office as “a reminder,” he once said, “that you should always keep your organization lean and hungry.” A wolf also adorned the letterhead of his company, Corporate Property Investors, symbolizing both his lone wolf approach to investing and the dog-eat-dog world in which he operated.
“He was a very tough negotiator,” Donald J. Trump, a partner in the Starrett City complex, said, “but an amazing real estate mind.”
Mr. Deane may be best known for assembling a group of investors in 1972 to back the development of Starrett City, the largest publicly assisted rental complex in the nation, with 5,881 apartments in 46 buildings. The complex, which overlooks Jamaica Bay and has its own power plant, post office and stores, is regarded as a successful example of economically and racially diverse housing.
Mr. Deane’s partnership, Starrett City Associates, officially changed the name of the complex in 2002 to Spring Creek Towers, though it remained known as Starrett City.
In 2006 and 2007, at the top of the real estate market, Mr. Deane and his partners twice tried to sell the vast property, much to the chagrin of tenants, housing activists and many public officials who feared that long-term residents would be replaced by new tenants paying higher rents.
City, state and federal officials subsequently struck a deal to refinance the complex, enabling it to remain affordable to poor and working-class New Yorkers while the partners made an estimated $200 million profit.
Disque Dee Deane was born on July 6, 1921. He grew up in New York City, attended Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan and Duke University.
He was a senior partner at the Lazard Freres investment bank, where he was active in corporate financing through real estate transactions.
In 1971, Mr. Deane formed Corporate Property Investors, one of the largest real estate investment trusts of its time. The company built a number of shopping centers, including the Roosevelt Field mall on Long Island, the Burlington Mall in Burlington, Mass., and Lenox Square in Atlanta.
Through his philanthropy, he supported the Deane Laboratories in Neurobiology at Duke University and the Deane Institute for Integrated Research on Atrial Fibrillation and Stroke at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Mr. Deane is survived by his wife, Carol, and their two children, Anne and Carl; five children from two prior marriages that ended in divorce, Hare Stuart, Marjorie Swain, Kathryn Deane, Disque Jr., and Walter; and several grandchildren.
No comments:
Post a Comment