In what would be the largest real-estate deal in the city’s history, a consortium of Hong Kong developers and Donald Trump are selling the Riverside South project on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for $1.8 billion, according to an article last night on the Web site of the New York Times. The article attributed the news of the impending sale to unnamed real estate executives who had been briefed on the deal.

The article said the Extell Development Corporation and the Carlyle Group have a tentative deal to buy the massive plot of land.

“I’ve heard the rumors, but I don’t have more information right now,” City Council Member Gale Brewer told The New York Sun last night.

The executive director of the Riverside South Planning Corp., Michael Bradley, said the sale was “news to me.” His entity oversees the Riverside South development.

The project encompasses 5,700 apartments being built between 59th and 72nd streets at the Hudson River. It was financed by Hong Kong investors, with Mr. Trump a limited partner who constructed the buildings.

“It is embarrassing that that site could sell for $1.8 billion, and the rail yards down the street where the Jets are building their stadium sold for a mere $250 million,” a member of the Hell’s Kitchen Hudson Yards Alliance, Joseph Restuccia, said. Similar to the proposed Jets stadium, which would be built over the 13-acre Hudson rail yards, Riverside South was built over the 75-acre Penn Yards rail site.

“It just shows how much value these rail yards really have, and what a ridiculous deal the city got from the Jets,” Mr. Restuccia said.

Conflicts over developing the Penn Yards site lasted four decades, until Mr. Trump and a partner bought the property for $100 million in 1985.

Mr. Trump first proposed a 16.5-million-square-foot project, Television City, which would have included the world’s tallest building, at 152 stories. He had hoped to entice NBC to be an anchor tenant. West Side residents and civic groups opposed the plan, and in late 1986 Mr. Trump revised his vision for the site. His new plan called for a 14.5-million-square-foot project, with 7,600 apartments in 60- and 70-story towers, and a regional shopping mall. Alexander Cooper, lead architect for Battery Park City’s master plan, was asked to design the development.

Opposition continued unabated, and even then-Mayor Koch got into the action, rejecting Mr. Trump’s request for zoning waivers and a $1 billion tax abatement to attract NBC. In 1987 NBC announced that it would not move to Television City.

As the Television City deal was falling apart, Mr. Trump’s finances began to unravel. In 1990, the banks restructured his $2 billion in loans and deferred payments on his $200-million loan for the Penn Yards project. In response, and to get the deal done, Mr. Trump reduced the project’s size by 40%, to an 8.3-million-square-foot development, with 17 buildings ranging from 30 to 40 stories and a 23-acre waterfront park.