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Azure sells 17-story Bronx rental building for $50M
423K sf Grand Concourse property changes hands for the third time since 2010
After two years, Azure Partners has sold a 17-story rental property on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx for $50 million, The Real Deal has learned.
The roughly 423,000-square-foot building at 1749 Grand Concourse traded hands three times since 2010. Azure, a Midtown West-based investment firm, sold it to an unidentified Brooklyn-based investor. The building, which includes 274 residential units and four retail spaces, offers about 200 feet of frontage on Grand Concourse.
Azure acquired the property in 2013 for $35 million from E&M Associates, which bought the building as part of a package in 2010 for $25 million. E&M has since sold all of its Bronx assets.
Ariel Property Advisors’ Scot Hirschfield said the deal is representative of the level of prices along the Grand Concourse. The increase in price — from $35 million to $50 million in less than two years — is also an indicator of a “strong market,” Hirschfield said.
“There’s an upward trend,” Hirschfield said. Adding that he wasn’t “shocked” to hear about the $50 million deal.
“There’s a lot of buzz about the Bronx in general as a market,” he said. Especially with the currently low interest rates, Hirschfield added, he expects similar properties to trade for similar prices.
Westwood Realty Associates’ Steven Vegh was the sole broker on the off-market transaction.
Azure usually prefers to hold on to its asset for long run, but decided to make an exception.
“Given the value we were able to create at the property during our ownership and the tremendous demand from investors for large rent stabilized properties, we were able to exit our investment at an attractive return,” said Arthur Rosenberg, chief executive of Azure said in a statement.
Azure put several millions of dollars into renovating the once-troubled building, adding “significant value” to the property, Vegh said. “This is one of the nicest buildings on the Grand Concourse.”
Last month, Asden Properties bought a 170-unit building right next door for $25.6 million, as TRD reported.