Chelsea building, home to hip Cafeteria, to hit market for $45M

David Schechtman and 119 Seventh Avenue
David Schechtman and 119 Seventh Avenue

A six-story mixed-use Chelsea building, home to hip celeb-friendly eatery Cafeteria, is set to hit the market for $45 million, or almost $850 per square foot, The Real Deal has learned.

The 53,123-square-foot property, at 161-165 West 17th Street, has been owned and managed since 1970 by the Duhl and Spector families, based in Manhattan and in Great Neck respectively, public records show.

David Schechtman of Eastern Consolidated has the listing; Schechtman would confirm only that the owner is a private group of families.

Joseph Spector was not immediately available for comment and the Duhl family could not be reached.

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The elevator building, with an alternative address of 119-125 Seventh Avenue, has 55 rent stabilized apartments — 33 studios and 22 one-bedrooms , according to the marketing materials. The apartments units are 100 percent leased at an average monthly rent of $1,335.

The building’s retail space, divided into four units, has 100 feet of Frontage On Seventh Avenue, most of which is leased to Cafeteria, which has a lease that expires in 2022.

The property cannot be a development site because 24,000 square feet of unused development rights were transferred in 2006 to a nearby building owner, Alfred Caiola, public records show.

Retail along Seventh Avenue in Chelsea has been trading at more than $3,000 a foot. Last year, Lloyd Goldman’s BLDG Acquisition purchased the retail component of the Yves condominium, at 127 Seventh Avenue, for $6.6 million or $3,217 per square foot on the ground floor, as The Real Deal previously reported.