A group of New York investors has given it a big vote of confidence by acquiring a majority stake in a deal said to value the 152-acre residential complex at more than $1.35 billion. The deal, reported in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, comes one week after the California Supreme Court gave the go-ahead to build 5,679 rentals alongside the existing 3,221 rent-controlled units, capping off an often-bitter three-year legal fight against critics of the plan. Heading the team of investors is Mark Karasick, managing partner of 601w, a New York real estate investment and development firm that has bought and sold residential and office buildings throughout the country. According to the Wall Street Journal, Karasick’s group invested nearly $200 million for “more than a 70 percent stake” in Parkmerced’s owner, Parkmerced Investors Properties, a group led by New York real estate investor Robert Rosania, and including San Francisco’s Fortress and Boston’s Rockport Group. The project has gone through many owners and investors, including the late Leona Helmsley and JPMorgan Chase, along with defaults, delays, tenant protests and court proceedings. In addition to new and upgraded housing, the Parkmerced Vision Plan calls for an “eco-neighborhood” designed by the San Francisco office of Skidmore Owings & Merrill, including retail, office space, a K-6 school, a community center, open space and Muni stops. Even with rent control remaining in more than one-third of the units, Parkmerced appears to make sense as a real estate investment. “The upward surge in rents generally over the past three years forgives a lot of problems,” said Patrick Carlisle, chief market analyst at San Francisco’s Paragon Real Estate Group.