So many empty stores, office buildings and other commercial real estate dot the country that you wonder if many of them will ever be filled again. Makes you also wonder if you’re renting an apartment it wouldn’t be cheaper to rent office space from desperate owner and live there.

A group led by Tishman Speyer Properties has decided to give up the sprawling Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town apartment complex in Manhattan to its creditors in the collapse of one of the most high-profile deals of the real-estate boom.

The decision comes after the venture between Tishman and BlackRock Inc. defaulted on the $4.4 billion debt used to help finance the deal. The venture acquired the 56-building, 11,000-unit property for $5.4 billion in 2006—the most ever paid for a single residential property in the U.S. The venture had been struggling for months to restructure the debt but capitulated facing a massive debt load and a weak New York City economy that has undercut rents and demand for high-priced apartments.

The property’s owners signaled they would be unable to reach a deal with lenders and instead decided to allow creditors to proceed with what amounts to an orderly deed-in-lieu of foreclosure, which means a borrower voluntarily gives the property back to lenders to avoid a foreclosure proceeding.

And then there’s this:

Problems in the U.S. commercial real estate market are expected to continue in the first quarter and are likely to be the cause of more bank failures in the coming year, a top banking regulator said Wednesday.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair said in a speech that regulators expect banks to report higher delinquencies and charge-off rates for commercial real estate properties in the first three months of 2010. Speaking to the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association, Bair said even income-producing properties have seen a decline in credit performance.

“Commercial real estate credit problems are affecting large and small banks alike,” Bair said.