It is also sweet revenge, given that Grand Central was almost lost in the nineteen-seventies, when the struggling Penn Central railroad commissioned Marcel Breuer to turn its financially draining terminal into a paying real-estate proposition by putting a huge skyscraper on the roof.
"It's very little other than a conventional commercial real-estate proposition – though achingly pretentious, and perhaps less successful than most".
And that, he said, along with the ability to shelter some current income from taxes, often makes donations of real estate an attractive proposition for donors and donees alike.
This piece of real estate seemed to test the proposition.
But the company had powerful friends, including Robert Klein II, the real estate developer who spearheaded the Proposition 71 campaign and became CIRM's first chairman, and Irving Weissman, a prominent Stanford stem cell scientist, a friend of Klein's, a major recipient of CIRM grants, a co-founder of the company, and member of its board.
"Donating real estate can be a win-win proposition," Mr. Shenkman said, adding that while the organizations that receive the donation derive an obvious benefit, "the advantages to the donor can be significant as well".
"Someone who is 70 might be comfortable doing a series of two-year GRATs, but a 10-year GRAT would be a riskier proposition," observes Richard Lang, an estate lawyer with McDermott, Will & Emery in Chicago.
As a business proposition, lobbyists for the real estate industry tend to agree.
Buying loans is a far different proposition from simply buying real estate.
Donald Eisen, executive vice president of Cushman and Wakefield, the commercial real estate brokers, called the plan "an iffy proposition" because Broad Street might prove too wide a chasm for the development that has fueled the city's renaissance so far.
