To sell out District, developer turns to BHS

After JC DeNiro & Associates sold out 80 percent of District, developers Africa Israel, Wonder Works Construction and Urban Equities NY dumped the company in favor of Brown Harris Stevens, to market the remaining 20 percent of the apartments in the 163-unit building at 111 Fulton Street.

Switching sales and marketing firms has become common practice for developers as sales have slowed over the last several months.

“[JC DeNiro] sold 80 percent of the units” without much fanfare, said developer Joseph Klaynberg. “We decided to change the firm so we could have bigger exposure to the world.” Brown Harris Stevens Select, the new development marketing division of Brown Harris Stevens, has begun marketing the building to international buyers, he said.

DeNiro, which had signed an agreement with the developers to sell up to 70 percent of the building’s units, “couldn’t draw major brokers,” and made most of the sales through “mom and pop little shops who brought the purchasers,” Klaynberg said. JC Deniro, which handled sales for the District since sales began in June or July 2007, has suffered another blow with its recent closure of its Upper West Side office.

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Jack DeNiro, founder of JC Deniro, could not be reached for comment.

Since changing firms two weeks ago, three more contracts have been signed at District, Klaynberg said. The remaining units are all penthouses with an average price of $900,000 and a per-square-foot average price of more than $1,000, he said.

The rest of the units, Klaynberg said, are “going to be an easy sale…[We will] finish by the end of July without discounting anything.”

District opened for occupancy three months ago, Klaynberg said.