Brooklyn, NY – David Bistricer Trying New Tactic For Starrett City.

Brooklyn, NY – Only days before the expiration of his $1.3 billion contract to buy a sprawling Brooklyn housing complex, David Bistricer is throwing the real estate equivalent of a new idea

Federal and state officials have twice rejected his bid to buy the complex, Starrett City, a cluster of 46 buildings and 5,881 apartments wedged between Canarsie and East New York on Jamaica Bay. And along the way, Mr. Bistricer, an investor from Borough Park, says he has been publicly and unfairly vilified by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the state attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo.

Now, with his deal for the nation’s largest federally subsidized project set to die on Tuesday, Mr. Bistricer has gone to the sidelines, sending in a new team to try to buy the project: the Provident Group, a nonprofit housing developer from Baton Rouge; and the New York City Central Labor Council.

The groups say they would work with Mr. Bistricer, but unlike him, they say they would preserve the complex forever as a haven for moderate and middle-income families at a time when housing costs are escalating beyond the reach of many tenants. Mr. Bistricer, they add, would become a bit player, with a stake in the shopping center and any future development, but little power.

But this last-chance gambit is likely to suffer the same fate as previous proposals, judging from the reaction of housing advocates and state and federal officials who were briefed on the plan this week in Washington and New York. Its sale must be approved by government officials.

Deborah Van Amerongen, the state housing commissioner, said she was waiting to see the details, but both sides acknowledged that their meeting did not go well.

“When it comes to Starrett City,” said Steve O’Halloran, a spokesman for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, “the devil is in the details.” [nytimes]