Toren sales figures illustrate yet another example of KPMG's lies about condo sales (bonus: joke about LeBron James moving in cited as rumor)

KPMG's Atlantic Yards market study, conducted on request of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and dated August 31, is supposed to back up the assertion that Atlantic Yards might be completed in the announced ten years, rather than, as then-ESDC CEO Marisa Lago said in April, "decades."

But it doesn't.

I've written before about KPMG's lies about sales figures at Richard Meier's On Prospect Park and the Oro condos. (The Empire State Development Corporation calls the latter lie "trivial" as a legal matter.)

Now let's take a look at the figures regarding the Toren condos. KPMG reported (see graphic above) that it had been 98% pre-leased/sold.

However, the New York Times reports today, in a "Square Feet" interview with developer Donald A. Capoccia, that the 240-unit building is 55% sold:

We launched this project in May 2008 and probably sold about a third of the building up to September. Then we had a hiatus. The building was completed in March 2010, and we’ve basically gotten up to a point where we’re now just about 55 percent sold, and we’re moving pretty quickly toward 60 percent. We’ve done 20 contracts in the last 12 days, and that’s just gangbusters!

We’re hoping — with our fingers crossed — that we could be at 180 units sold by the end of this year, which is just about what we need to get square with the bank, in terms of the repayment of the construction financing.

How the LeBron James rumor spreads

There's an illuminating exchange in the Q&A with Capoccia that plants the idea that Cleveland Cavaliers superstar is considering the Toren should he choose to come to play for the Nets:

Q Have prices come down much from two years ago?

A Prices are within 5 to 10 percent of our original numbers. Our lowest-priced unit is $295,000 for a studio, and the prices range up to $1.65 million for a three-bedroom three-bathroom penthouse of about 2,000 square feet. The premier apartment is what I call the LeBron James pad.

Q Has he looked at that unit?

A I heard he did, but I don’t have confirmation of that.

What's the source? A joke, most likely.

The only mention I could find was a post from July 2008 on StreetEasy by a user going by the handle Junkman (aka Karl Junkersfeld) who has bought in the Toren and is also a contributor to the Brooklyn Heights Blog:

(For those of you who are basketball fans, Lebron is rumored to be looking at Toren penthouse for 2010. With Barclays Center down the street it would make a perfect coupling.) :>)

Well, there was no chance the Barclays Center would open in 2010 at the time--the current bet is 2012--and the emoticons were supposed to be a signal.

After some posters on StreetEasy raised questions and criticized him as a shill, Junkman responded:

Obviously, anyone with a bit of common sense knows that the Lebron statement was a joke. Hello, a joke. The chances of him coming to Brooklyn are slim and the chances of him coming to the Toren is non-existent. If by some chance Lebron was to come to the Nets, Trump with be his first visit. I tried to inject a sense of humor that you, apparently took seriously. To call my attempt at humor, rumor mongering, is absurd.