Council member Dickens and the two Harlem buildings in debt

The city plans to auction off liens on two Harlem apartment buildings partly owned by City Council member Inez Dickens, the New York Daily News reported. The two properties — 2153 and 2155 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard — are $48,375 behind in payments.

Dickens inherited a 50 percent ownership in the properties from her late father, Council member Lloyd Dickens. [more]

From left: Harlem Park and Steven Roth of Vornado

Vornado Realty Trust will sell Harlem Park — a plot of land that was previously designated for the development of an office building, the New York Observer reported. The site, located at 1800 Park Avenue at 125th Street, will yield $62 million in proceeds and a $22 million net gain. [more]

A rendering of the St. Nicholas Park Apartments in Harlem

As more and more New York City developers these days favor the neo-modern and deonstructivist idioms, it appears as though Manhattan itself is the last bastion for the postmodern contextualism that dominated the 1980s and 1990s. A case in point is St. Nicholas Park Apartments in Central Harlem, designed by SLCE Architects and scheduled for completion this summer. [more]

From left: MNS CEO Andrew Barrocas and 601-603 West 137th Street (source: PropertyShark)

Bonjour Capital, a New York City-based investment and development firm, has tapped residential brokerage MNS to lead leasing efforts at the Westbourne, a five-building rental complex located at 601-611 West 137th Street in Manhattanville, The Real Deal has learned. Bonjour and MNS are gradually revamping the building with renovations and a new marketing campaign that targets value-conscious tenants from outside the neighborhood.  [more]

From left: CBRE’s Lon Rubackin and East Harlem

East Harlem is drawing more developers for residential projects, the New York Times reported. And the attraction is strong: students at the Hunter College Silberman School of Social Work need housing, as do young professionals and families pushed out of the Upper East Side by high rents. [more]

From left: Meyer Orbach and 210-230 West 107th Street

Landlord Orbach Group has forked over $70 million to buy three contiguous six-story apartment buildings in Harlem, consisting of Nos. 210, 220 and 230 West 107th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, Crain’s reports. [more]

East Harlem

The number of Asian — mainly Chinese — residents in East Harlem has boomed in the last decade, with the population doubling on the southern end of the neighborhood and tripling on the northern end, the New York Times reported, citing U.S. Census figures. Many of the residents came by way of public housing: Over the past five years, Asian residents of New York City Housing Authority properties in East Harlem increased by 68 percent, the Times said. [more]

Danforth’s Steven Williams and a project rendering

Harlem’s Victoria Theater is finally getting a makeover, Real Estate Weekly reported. The building on 125th Street, designated a city landmark in 1993, will be transformed into a mix of hotel rooms, residences and retail space. Developers Exact Capital and Danforth Development Partners have tapped architects Aufgang & Subotovsky to design the project; construction is scheduled to start in the fourth quarter. [more]

From left: Marcus Samuelsson, Maya Haile and images of the townhouse interior

UPDATED, 11:15 a.m., Feb. 9: Chef Marcus Samuelsson and his model wife, Maya Haile, have purchased a townhouse at 30 West 120th Street in Central Harlem for almost $2.9 million, according to public records filed today with the city. [more]

2040 Frederick Douglass Boulevard

Officials from New York’s Economic Development Corporation told residents from the North Star Neighborhood Association yesterday that there is plentiful interest in redeveloping the BP gas station site on 110th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, DNAinfo reported.

The EDC sought proposals in June to build on the 13,500-square-foot space at 2040 Frederick Douglass Boulevard. “We think we got a very robust response showing there is interest in developing the site,” Scott Solish, vice president of real estate for the EDC, said. [more]