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Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village To Be Sold For More Than $5.3 Billion

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) --  New York City officials have announced the sale of Manhattan's largest apartment complex for $5.3 billion in a deal that will preserve nearly half its 11,232 units for middle-class families.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the deal for Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village on Tuesday, WCBS 880's Rich Lamb reported.

De Blasio said it will be sold to Blackstone and Ivanhoe Cambridge, a subsidiary of Canadian pension fund manager CDPQ.

"This is a great day for New York City," de Blasio said. "This is a great victory for tenants everywhere.

"We would not be here but for the fact that you wouldn't give up," the mayor told the tenants. "You believed in protect housing for the middle class and for working people. You believed that idea was not dead in New York City."

Under the terms of the deal, about 4,500 apartments in the complex on Manhattan's east side would be reserved for middle-income families for at least 20 years. Another 500 would be kept for lower-income families.

"Our agreement with the city preserves this important heritage, and the community stays, as you've heard, as a bastion of middle-class living in New York City," said Jonathan Gray, Blackstone's global head of real estate."

"The uncertainty and turmoil that this complex has endured since the financial crisis is definitively over," Gray told tenants, who applauded.

Many residents are happy all the uncertainty is over.

"Not to have a land owner who is going to gauge us and eventually push us out," a resident named Leslie told 1010 WINS' Juliet Papa reported.

Original owner MetLife sold the complex on the borough's east side for $5.4 billion in 2006, but the new owners defaulted.

CW Capital Asset Management LLC has controlled the 80-acre property since 2010.

(TM and © Copyright 2015 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2015 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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