Storage at 56 Leonard pricier than average U.S. home

Izak Senbahar’s 56 Leonard Street, the high-end “Jenga” condominium in Tribeca, is selling storage space for up to $1,800 per square foot. The 60-story skyscraper recently sold a 200-square-foot storage unit in the basement for $300,000 — about $1,500 per square foot. The average sale price for an existing home nationwide was $260,600 in July, according to the National Association of Realtors.

“It’s unbelievable,” Elizabeth Unger of Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group, which is handling sales at the tower, told the New York Post. “But when you compare New York to the rest of the country, we’re limited with space. We don’t have the garage or basement, and closet space is at a premium.”

The buyers of the $300,000 unit were owners of a three-bedroom upper floor unit, but representatives for the developer declined to identify them to the Post.

The building’s 76 basement storage spaces start at $72,000, for 40 square feet, and go up to $214,200, for 119 square feet. The spaces can be combined to create larger spaces as well.

About 80 percent of the 145 condo in the building have been sold, representing $900 million in sales, according to the newspaper. [NYP] – Hiten Samtani