Sylvia Rhone grew up in Harlem, but she's a downtown girl at heart.

Sylvia Rhone may have grown up in Harlem and made her career managing hip-hop and R&B acts, but the music mogul prefers to come home to a Downtown address at night.

And Tribeca is about as far downtown as a luxury condo-seeker can get. Ms. Rhone just sealed a deal on a three-bedroom, 3.5-bath spread at the warehouse-to-condo conversion 250 West Street, city records show. She was so taken with the place that she dropped $4.32 million on it—a few thousand more than the $4.25 ask—buying the unit from the developer, former Plaza Hotel-owner El Ad.

The condo, listed by Erica Miller at Cantor and Pecorella, boasts a roomy 2,500 square feet of space and has a joint living/dining room that looks out onto the Hudson River (which overflowed its banks during Hurricane Sandy and delayed the building's move-in date). On the bright side, Ms. Rhone will have a pristine view of not only the river, but of the suburban New Jersey towns that help line her pockets ("you're seeing more white kids at a hip-hop show than black kids," she recently told The Hollywood Reporter).

One of the building's model units.

Ms. Rhone clawed her way up through the music biz, starting out as a lowly secretary at Buddha Records, and has since been associated with names like Atlantic, Motown and Cash Money—something Ms. Rhone apparently takes very seriously.

Despite her black music bonafides, Ms. Rhone started out working in a different cash money-related field—high finance—earning her bachelor's degree from Wharton in economics and then landing a job at Bankers Trust. This may explain her banker sensibility when it comes to real estate—she's moving from a penthouse at 377 Rector Place in Battery Park City that she sold to Hermès CEO Robert Chavez last year for $4.9 million.

Along with her new condo, Ms. Rhone also has a new job. She is now head of her own label, Vested in Culture, which she launched through a joint partnership with Epic Records and its new chairman and CEO, L.A. Reid, possibly signaling an end to the sometimes-icy relations between the two most powerful figures in black music.

Matthew Patrick Smyth designed this bedroom with globe-trotters in mind.

The Observer took a long, damp walk to 250 West Street last night for the condo conversion's official debut (its target audience is clearly not the public transportation crowd), but the Hudson, thankfully, kept to itself on the far side of the highway.

It was not so well behaved last October, when Hurricane Sandy flooded the Tribeca building's basement, delaying not only the move-in date, but the big reveal of three apartments gussied up by Hearst for its interior design showcase. (Some of the mechanicals in the basement had to be replaced.)

Sandy did little to stymie sales, however—the 106-unit, Zone A building only has eight apartment left, including a massive penthouse with its own lobby (still under construction)—and is expecting to receive its certificate of occupancy later this month, according to spokesman Josh Greenwald.

David Rockwell's design screams rich bohemian.

And while high-end real estate unveilings are invariably sweet torture for the melange of reporters, brokers, PR people and design buffs who attend them but can't afford the apartments they celebrate, this one was especially cruel. All three Hearst showcase apartments, decorated by Matthew Patrick Smyth, David Rockwell and Anthony Todd are in contract to be sold (for $2.95 million, $3.54 million and $5.93 million respectively).

The unfinished penthouse, which is expected to be priced around $40 million, and could possibly be combined with the separately offered apartment below it, provided little relief for the more budget-conscious luxury shopper.

The event, meanwhile, was packed with creative types pretending to be wealthier than they were and luxury apartments pretending to be more creative than they were. The designers, at least, picked suitably well-paid but artsy occupations for the apartments' pseudo occupants: a fashion entrepreneur and high-ranking curator, a financier and advertising executive and a brand strategist/elephant conservationist and creative business investor.

The apartments were the sort of sprawling, big-windowed spaces where the walls can be painted in colors like night shade without making a room seem small or dark. The vague, but suppressed suggestion of the building's industrial past in traditionally laid out apartments could occasionally produce infelicitous juxtapositions: in one of the showcase apartments, a pillar was plunked awkwardly between the living room and kitchen.

As far as new development debuts go, the evening did attract a more varied crowd, among them actors and filmmakers who had shot films in the three apartments and a puppeteer. Security guards were also plentiful, watching the high-end housewares and providing direction to confused party-goers looking for a bathroom. "Which one can I use?" asked one woman who had failed to decipher the signs hanging from the many bathroom doors.

We heard not one, but two couples discussing foreign language acquisition (as well as an uncomfortable exercise in which a man recited the days of the week in a Germanic-sounding language as the woman tentatively echoed him. We hope it wasn't a date).

The rain, the candles and a much friendlier than usual crowd (the actors invited us to an after-party in the East Village which we, sadly, did not attend), and the pink and orange cocktails created a more relaxed crowd than usual. One woman prodded a painting and declared that it looked "like cake frosting." Another guest giggled at the "boys and sex" educational book on the nightstand of the children's room (what pre-teen would ever leave that out? she asked).

Two other women, after finding themselves in a palatial closet, contemplated the fictional lady of the house.

"She only wears shiny things," said one as she reached to stroke a crimson stole. Then she peered at a pair of Converse in pristine white, carefully arranged to look carelessly kicked off beneath a divan. "The sneakers look so fake," she remarked.

"Oh Caroline," sighed the other woman, "you have to make believe."

"But I do believe!" cried Caroline. "I totally believe."

kvelsey@observer.com

And all those fantastic leases and sales that titillated, that seemed ever on the verge of closure, turned out to be fantastic teases. Here, in no particular order, are the eight major deals of 2008 that never were.

NBC Universal

In May, NBC Universal announced the imminent creation of a business center outside of its 30 Rock headquarters. Brokers said the company wanted 600,000 square feet. Brokers fanned out across Manhattan. “They went through every fucking building that there was,” one broker said. “They were clearly the most
conspicuous deal of 2008 that never happened.”

Worldwide Plaza and 1540 Broadway

In September, the family-owned George Comfort & Sons was said to be closing in on these towers, detritus from the ruined Macklowe empire that ended up on Deutsche Bank’s balance sheet. The deal was said to rely on NBC’s putting its business center in Worldwide. That didn’t happen. And then neither did the Comfort deal.

“The price kept coming down and down, the market kept going from bad to worse to horrific to abominable,” said Eric Michael Anton of Eastern Consolidated. Nevertheless, sources close to the negotiations insist that a deal will be forthcoming, with at least one-half of the desultory duo selling by year’s end.

452 Fifth Avenue

HSBC gave us a whopping two deals that never were. First, HSBC wanted to lease or sell its headquarters at 452 Fifth. And then it wanted to take a mega-chunk of space at Larry Silverstein’s 7 World Trade Center. The failure of one plan meant the failure of both.

According to one investment broker, 452 Fifth, though lovely, was a “difficult sell.” “It’s sort of a mishmash,” the broker said. “HSBC had for 20 years crafted it for its own use, so it’s not so easy to re-craft for tenants, especially in a bad market.”

250 West Street

In 2007, it was reported that El-Ad, of Plaza conversion notoriety, had sold 250 West Street to Coalco for about $200 million. When The Observer checked in with kindly Coalco New York president Mikhail Kurnev in August, he confirmed that the deal was still in the works, and he anticipated “closing in the next few months.”

We hear the otherwise successful Mr. Kurnev has since been sent packing to Moscow. Neither Coalco nor El-Ad would comment for this story. But sources say Coalco wants its deposit back, El-Ad doesn’t want to give it back, and that the two are now litigating.

Hearst Tower

This angular beauty can’t find a ground-floor retail tenant, despite its icy good looks and more than two years on the market. Brokers blame the Hearst parents, who apparently want a higher-class tenant than the Eighth Avenue location will attract.

100 Church

In February, Newsweek was said to be taking 200,000 square feet at this downtown building, owned by the Sapir Organization. At the time, 600,000 of the building’s 1.1 million square feet were vacant. And then Newsweek backed out.

Fast-track to December. That 600,000 square feet is still, by and large, vacant. Certainly, the recession is partly to blame. But word has it that the building’s gaudy new lobby, with its more than 50 Swarovski crystal chandeliers, didn’t help any.

One Hanson Place

Another glorious building sitting empty, now running on three years. Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds and the Dermot Company bought the Brooklyn building, once home to a town of dentists, in 2005, revamped it, and hired Newmark Knight Frank Retail to market the space.

This year, the developer fired Newmark and hired the retail group at Prudential Douglas Elliman, and still nothing. We imagine the old banking hall’s landmarking—both interior and exterior—likely has something to do with it, along with the high price of the space, and, needless to say, the recession.

Orrick, Herrington

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe was for months this close to taking up to 300,000 square feet at the Citigroup Center. And then, it wasn’t. Reportedly, Orrick wanted to wait for rents to fall. The attorneys advised themselves wisely.

drubinstein@observer.com

Plaza owner El-Ad Properties bought 250 West Street, a 98-year-old building 11 stories tall, from Citigroup in 2006 for $142 million. Bank workers have since emptied the building, bidding farewell to Robert De Niro’s largely residential fiefdom. And, in November, El-Ad went into contract to flip 250 West to an entity called Coalco for $201 million (a tidy 41 percent markup).

Here’s the funny thing. Now it’s August, more than eight months later, and Coalco has yet to close on the empty building. That’s a hell of a long haul. Boston Properties closed on the largest single-asset purchase in history—the $2.8 billion GM Building buy—in just two and a half weeks.

While Mikhail Kurnev, president of Coalco New York, would say only that eight months “is actually a pretty reasonable period of time,” and that he anticipated “closing in the next few months,” a broker who asked to remain anonymous said he’d heard Coalco was bargaining for a price reduction.

A source close to the negotiations suggested that Coalco is still searching for financing, which is remarkably scarce these days.

Either way, one thing’s for sure. El-Ad, the moneyed concern behind the Plaza Hotel condo conversions, is hedging its bets. Despite its contract with Coalco, the group is apparently continuing to market the building as both a residential conversion and as commercial space.

On its Web site, El-Ad calls 250 West Street its “next great achievement in residential conversions,” describing plans for “splendid, loft style residences accessed through private elevator vestibules, [and] the finest in building amenities and on-site parking.”

Meanwhile, on MrOfficeSpace.com—a commercial real estate listing resource—CBRE vice chairman Howard Fiddle is marketing the entire building as commercial space, at $59 a square foot on the 11th floor, and $55 on the first floor. The listing was last updated in July.

Why the conflicting listings? “Let’s say you get a great tenant,” explained the broker. “If the buyer doesn’t want to pay the whole price, El-Ad can pull out of its contract with Coalco and lease it instead.”

Mr. Fiddle did not return a request for comment. El-Ad declined to comment. But as the source familiar with the negotiations put it, all of this cross-listing is “the prudent thing to do,” particularly in this market. “Sometime these things don’t sell.”

drubinstein@observer.com