The firms that own two of the biggest dwelling complexes in New York have decided to hand over the control of its creditors and put an end to the major Real Estate operation in the history of the United States, informed today the local press.

Tishman Speyer, owner of the Chrysler skyscraper and the Rockefeller Center in New York, bought in 2006, together with BlackRock, the residential complexes Peter Cooper Villages and Stuyvesant Town for $5,400 million. Until the purchase this complexes were property of MetLife Insurance.

That operation was the highest done until then in the United States. But with the blast of the financial and real estate bubble, the buyers have been incapable of facing the credit devolution that was requested to finance the project.

The two residential complexes which occupies 32 hectares on the First Avenue in Manhattan (between 14th and 23rd Streets) form the major set of apartments of the island with 11,227 dwellings divided into 110 buildings.

The buildings were constructed in 1947 to host the veterans of the World War II and from there they have been inhabited by middle working class families despite the purchasing companies wanted to transform some of these homes for high class tenants.

The buyers decided to concede its property to the creditors after adimitting they can’t face the debt for $4,400 million, explained the Wall Street Journal.

The financial daily added that Tishman and BlackRock have tried during months to re-arrange the debt in moments where the economic in New York has become weak and the prices of rent and the demand for high quality apartments have depleted, too.

The owners of the residential complexes pointed in a press release in the New York Times that they tried to negotiate “in good faith” for a restructuration of the debt, but in the last days it seemed evident that “the only viable alternative to bankrupt will be transferred the control and the operation of the property to the borrowers and their representatives”.