Real Estate Trends

October 28, 2015

Blockbuster Greenwich Lane Closes Its First Sales, Each Eight Figures

The first of five of the city's priciest developments has finally started to cash in, with two eight-figure sales recorded at Greenwich Village's rising mega-development, The Greenwich Lane. As 6qft reported in April, the ginormous, block-eating condo complex located at 145 West 11th Street is anticipated to make between $1.4 to $1.7 billion dollars at sell out. The first two sales, which appeared in public filings released yesterday, are a five-bedroom 4,537-square-foot unit (#8) which closed at $19.53 million, and similarly another 4,529-square-foot five-bedroom (#4) that closed at $16.32 million.
more on the significance of the two sales here
October 27, 2015

This Website Tells You Who Died in Your House and How

Forget paying to tour a haunted house; find out if you're living in your very own version with this creepy website DiedInHouse.com. According to Forbes, the site can determine whether someone died at a given address and even if a person was murdered, committed suicide, or if there were any arson instances or meth labs there. To arrive at these findings, they use death certificates, news reports, and 130 million police records. And while this is a fun little Halloween experiment, it actually has more serious implications. Statistics show that a death or serious crime in a home can drop its value by up to 30 percent.
More details ahead
October 27, 2015

First Look at the Bow Building’s Interiors, Fifth Avenue Gem Comes Back to Life as Condos

Here's a first look at the interiors of Pan-Brothers Associates lovingly restored condominium development The Bow Building at 242 Fifth Avenue. Acquiring its name from the ornamental bow cast onto its facade, the structure's Queen Anne cast-iron front has been rehabilitated to its original 1885 grandeur. Once home to high-end antique furniture stores, tailors and art dealers, its sumptuously-scaled, arched windows will soon flood light into four bespoke units, each equipped with 11- to 20-foot ceilings and private outdoor spaces.
More info and all the renderings
October 27, 2015

How NYC Could Be Better, Architects Vishaan Chakrabarti and Gregg Pasquarelli Sound Off

SHoP architect Gregg Pasquarelli and Vishaan Chakrabarti of Partnership for Architecture and Urbanism (and formerly of SHoP) talk about all of the infrastructural and architectural improvements NYC needs. The pair cite solutions spurring change in other cities around the world as examples of what we should be doing. [Curbed via Wired] The NYC Marathon generates millions of dollars for the city […]

October 27, 2015

REVEALED: Interior Renderings of Norman Foster’s Skinny Seagram-Neighboring Condo Tower

Norman Foster is a master when it comes to contextual thoughtfulness, and his latest creation slated to rise next door to Mies van der Rohe's iconic Seagram Building is one to be admired. Called One Hundred East Fifty Third Street (it takes its name from its address), the 63-story tower has just released a new set of interior renderings to Dezeen which show what the world's richest will be snapping up when units hit the market next week.
Have a closer look inside
October 27, 2015

65-Story Condo Tower Designed by CetraRuddy to Rise in the Downtown Skyline

Last week it was announced that the long vacant Financial District lot at 45 Broad Street would be redeveloped into a 65-story condominium tower through a partnership between Madison Equities and the Pizzarotti Group. According to The Real Deal, "The buyers closed on the purchase of the land for $86 million and secured a $75 million acquisition loan." While it is not yet clear what the project’s exact size and number of units will be, given the lofty ceiling heights of today's high-end condo developments, 65 stories could yield a tower of up to 900 feet.
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October 26, 2015

Funny Woman Rachel Dratch Buys an Unamusing Gramercy Co-op for $1.65M

Actress, comedian, producer and writer Rachel Dratch is one of the least serious people in showbiz, so it's surprising that her latest real estate purchase is such a bore. The SNL alum picked up a $1.65 million co-op at 230 East 15th Street in Gramercy, according to city records released today. Depressing decor and utilitarian vibes aside, the two-bedroom spread does overlook the picturesque Stuyvesant Park and offer a decent amount of space. Plus, the neighborhood is a lot more low-key than celeb hotspots like Tribeca or Central Park West.
See more of the apartment here
October 26, 2015

Check Out the Views From 1,438 Feet in the Air at 111 West 57th Street

Last week, 6sqft brought you an up close and personal look at 111 West 57th Street's exterior facade mock-up, and now Property Markets Group (PMG), who is co-developing the super-tower with JDS Development Group, posted a nifty interactive panorama of the building's out-of-this-world views. Rising from the heart of Billionaires' Row (New York's very own Mount Olympus and preferred residence of our anonymous overlords), the building is 80 stories and 1,438 feet high and is nearly perfectly on axis to Central Park–an egotistical perk that Extell's Central Park Tower and Macklowe/CIM Group's 432 Park aren't granted despite having higher apartments.
This way for the views
October 26, 2015

First Peek at Alchemy Properties’ 26-Story NOMA Condominium

Here's our first peek at Alchemy Properties' upcoming mixed-use condominium development NOMA. Slated to rise 26 stories/316 feet from a 7,000-square-foot corner lot at 846-850 Sixth Avenue, the building will be the first ground-up condominium development in NoMad west of Fifth Avenue. With demolition just wrapping up on a single-story strip of retail stores, excavation will soon begin for a FXFowle-designed mixed-use tower that is slated to house 52 condo apartments and 13,000 square feet of retail space on its first two floors. Zoning diagrams filed at the Department of Buildings indicate the form of the tower will be composed of variously scaled and skewed interlocking volumes. Units with eastern exposures will have balconies.
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October 23, 2015

Port Authority Announces Design Competition to Replace Hated Bus Terminal to the Tune of $10B

The chance to reimagine one of the most loathed buildings in Manhattan certainly must be appealing to designers, so it's likely the Port Authority will receive a lot of submissions for their newly announced international competition to replace the current bus terminal. Crain's reports that "The operator of the nation's busiest bus terminal approved a plan Thursday to move ahead toward replacing the overcrowded, dilapidated 65-year-old facility, with a goal of deciding on a final design by [September 2016]." It's expected that the project will cost between $7 and $10 billion and take several years to complete.
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October 23, 2015

A Closer Look at How XOCO 325’s Oh-So-Cool Melting Facade Was Created

Earlier, we gave you a look at DDG's rough-cut, bluestone facade at 12 Warren Street in Tribeca, and now, just a few blocks north within the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District, the team has de-shrouded the skeletal exterior of their upcoming condominium XOCO 325. Rising from a through-block site at 325 West Broadway, the 48,000 square foot development will house 21 light-filled residences upon its completion early next year. DDG picked up the site for $38.5 million in 2012, and in typical fashion, souped up the design with organic and environmentally inspired elements that charmed the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
more this way
October 23, 2015

DDG’s Bluestone Beauty at 12 Warren Street Finally Shows Some Skin

Fully-integrated design and build firm DDG has raised the curtain on their highly anticipated condo development 12 Warren Street. Designed by their in-house architect Peter Guthrie, its facade of roughly-hewn Pennsylvania bluestone is meant to evoke the natural uneven stacking of the material. In what must have taken quite the effort to detail, variously dimensioned slabs, ranging from standard-sized bricks to large lintel blocks, protrude from the exterior at varying depths. While more commonly seen underfoot as sidewalk pavement, here the brittle stone's soothing tone softens the building's ogreish form, whose still-shrouded cliff-like top will incorporate a wild display of projecting volumes and terraces. As simply stated by architecture critic Carter Horsely, "DDG continues its elegant campaign to make New Yorkers lust after bluestone rather than brownstone."
Find out more details about the development
October 23, 2015

Dramatically Angular West Village Penthouse Rental Wants $18K a Month

Whether Rogers Marvel Architects, designer of the dramatically-angled building atop which this 3,000-square-foot pad is perched, were inspired by the convergent lines of the Flatiron Building, had some tricky space issues to navigate, or just wanted to make a point, this triangular triplex at 1 Seventh Avenue South does its best to avoid looking like a contemporary interpretation of a ‘50s corner diner, and to some degree, succeeds. To be fair, the building conforms perfectly to its similarly-angled lot, undoubtedly no small feat. This high-floor haven offers three bedrooms, multi-floor terraces, a host of modern amenities (smart wiring, multi-zone heating and central air, to name a few) and the kind of big views–and neighborhood–that command big rents, so the $18K a month is no surprise. Though much of the apartment's decor and furnishings seem out of place for a glass-walled Downtown penthouse, as they say, there’s no accounting for taste. We don’t know if the rental is available furnished or mercifully emptied of its late-20th century Z Gallerie closeout haul, but with three floors and lots of outdoors, there's plenty of room, literally, for improvement.
Let's point out some highlights
October 22, 2015

City Subsidies Have Been Focused on Wealthy Neighborhoods; New Construction in Crown Heights Draws in Buyers

A new report from the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development shows that city subsidies have historically gone to the neighborhoods that need it the least. [Crain’s] Why it was faster to build subways back in 1900. [Atlas Obscura] New condos in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights account for 20 percent of the borough’s sales. [DNA Info] […]

October 21, 2015

A Behind the Scenes Look at How SHoP’s Stunning Facade at 111 West 57th Street Will Come to Life

Last month, JDS Development wowed us with an image showing a visual curtain wall mockup of their super-tower underway at 111 West 57th Street. Now the Michael Stern-led development team in partnership with Property Markets Group has released a new video and a handful of images to keep our mouths watering for what is poised to become New York's most daring skyscraper in generations. Designed by the local talents at ShoP Architects, the tower has already nervously impressed us with its extraordinary height of 1,438 feet and its jaw-dropping slenderness (a ratio of 1:24). Now that its engineers, the WSP Group, and the Times have thoroughly convinced us that the building will not fall over, we can focus our attention on the tower's elegantly detailed facade, composed of a feathery mix of terra-cotta, bronze, and glass. A recent video posted by JDS provides us with more glimpses of the cladding, a time-lapse video of how the facade will transform throughout the day, as well as some behind-the-scenes insight of the extraordinary undertaking involved to sheath this future landmark.
Watch the video and get more details
October 21, 2015

POLL: Will the Sale of Stuy Town to Blackstone Make It a More or Less Desirable Place to Live?

The hot topic right now in the real estate world is undoubtedly the $5.3 billion sale of Stuyvesant Town to the Blackstone Group and Canadian investment firm Ivanhoe Cambridge. Aside from the huge sum and the fact that the apartment complex has been long-plagued, what makes this deal so huge is that the new owners agreed to […]

October 20, 2015

SHoP’s Essex Crossing Mega-Market Will Be One of Largest in the Nation

The $1.1 billion Essex Crossing project will be a 1.65 million-square-foot, mixed-use mega-development anchored by 1,000 residential units and a mix of cultural, community, and retail facilities. Of course, a project of this magnitude is not without controversy, and perhaps the biggest debate was over the loss of the 75-year-old Essex Street Market. But new details have emerged on how the market will actually be expanded and transformed into one of the five biggest markets in the country, according to Curbed. Known as the Market Line, the bi-level space designed by SHoP Architects will cover 150,000 square feet and connect three sites along Broome Street. It will be a foodie/retail promenade with a floating garden, beer hall, galleries, tech incubators, and, according to renderings, an outpost of Smorgasburg.
More details ahead
October 20, 2015

Blackstone Buys Stuy Town for $5.3 Billion, Will Preserve Affordable Housing

The saga of Stuyvesant Town continues. The Real Deal reports that the Blackstone Group has partnered with Canadian investment firm Ivanhoe Cambridge to buy Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village for $5.3 billion, just slightly under 2006's $5.4 billion sale. Currently, more than half of the 11,200 apartments in the long-plagued complex (which was built under Robert Moses as affordable housing for veterans returning from WWII) are market rate. And as TRD notes, "As part of the new agreement with the city, Blackstone will reserve 4,500 units at the complex for middle-income families for the next 20 years... An additional 500 units will be slated for low-income families, and Blackstone will not attempt a condominium conversion at the complex." In order to keep the affordable units, the city will provide $225 million in funding; give Blackstone a $144 million low-interest loan through the Housing Development Corporation; and waive $77 million in taxes.
Find out more about the deal
October 19, 2015

Subway Inn Site May Get a 1,000+ Foot Supertall Tower

It was almost two years ago that rumors starting circulating that beloved dive bar the Subway Inn would be forced out of its 77-year home in the wake of being purchased by the World Wide Group as one of six parcels on 60th Street between Third and Lexington Avenues. The bar did close in August 2014, but relocated to a new space around the corner on Second Avenue. This past summer, Cushman & Wakefield worked with World Wide to market/sell the assemblage, using renderings of a glassy supertall tower and talk of nearby Billionaires Row to sweeten the deal. Now, the Commerical Observer reports that Chinese developer Kuafu Properties bought the 19,685-square-foot plot for $300 million, getting one step closer to bringing the 1,000+ foot-tall condo to reality.
More details and renderings ahead
October 16, 2015

New Renderings of Handel Architects’ Torqued 43-Story Rental Underway Near Grand Central

Groundwork on BLDG Management's 43-story rental tower at 222 East 44th Street is quickly moving forward now that the large block-through parking garage that occupied the site has been removed. The 441,000-square-foot development situated midblock between Second and Third Avenues will house 429 residential units, 87 of which will be deemed affordable. East 44th Street is among the most densely built streetscapes in the city, and will be more so once three other high-rises projects on the stretch are complete. But as 6sqft reported in August, the 556-foot-tall, Handel Architects-designed development employs a unique massing where its elevations are torqued away from the street wall, granting additional light and air to residents.
This way for more details and renderings
October 16, 2015

Billionaire Art Collector in Contract to Buy Andy Warhol’s $85M Former Montauk Compound

"I knew Andy in the early 1980s as a very young man, and I’m a collector of his work . . . I’m very lucky to have this opportunity to live out this dream. It’s a work of art." This is what billionaire art collector and Upper East Side gallery owner Adam Lindemann told the Post regarding going into contract on Andy Warhol's $85 million former Montauk estate and equestrian farm. Warhol bought the 30-acre compound, known as "Eothen," in 1972 along with filmmaker friend Paul Morrissey for a mere $225,000, putting Montauk on the map as an A-list retreat on par with the East End. As 6sqft reported when the listing hit the market in June, "For years, the artist used the compound as a city retreat, entertaining friends and luminaries that included Jackie Onassis, Mick Jagger, Elizabeth Taylor and John Lennon. Back then, guests of Warhol enjoyed 600 feet of private oceanfront and 24 acres on the bluffs overlooking the ocean." And now Lindemann, whose fortune comes from his father George Lindemann's success in pharmaceuticals and pipeline companies, can try to relive these glory days.
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October 16, 2015

Williamsburg’s New Soda Factory Lofts Bottle Industrial Architecture but Add Modern Style

Leasing has launched at the former Williamsburg manufacturing plant of the Brooklyn Bottling Company and Dr. Brown's Soda. The new development at 60 Berry Street is aptly called the Soda Factory Lofts, and the 40 units are an attractive mix of industrial architecture and modern style. There are currently 12 apartments on the market, ranging from a $3,300/month one-bedroom to a $5,500/month two bedroom.
Check them out