The developers of the Corner, the popular Upper West Side rental tower that opened last year at 72nd Street and Broadway, have already cashed in, selling their 196-unit property to retirement system TIAA-CREF for $209 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. The developers, a joint venture of Philips International and Rhodes Associates for the Corner, had spent more than 20 years assembling the prime development site and will hold onto the 48,000-square-foot retail space in the building, currently home to Trader Joe’s and Duane Reade. The sale price for the rest of the building — including its generous amenity spaces — works out to more than $1 million per unit, or around $1,400 per square foot, which is about double that of the typical rental apartment transaction, thanks to the Corner’s high rental rates: one-bedrooms there go for between $5,000 and $6,000 per month. [more]

From left: Fergie, Josh Duhamel, the exterior of 200 West 72nd Street as well as interiors of unit 15E

Singer Fergie’s husband, actor Josh Duhamel, was looking at an $18,000 rental unit at the Upper West Side’s Corner. A former model and star in the TV series “Las Vegas,” which ran from 2003 to 2008, Duhamel was spotted today going into the on-site rental office at Gotham Organization’s 200 West 72nd Street at Broadway. He was shown a three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath spread with 1,000-square-foot set-back terrace that wraps around the front of the building, sources said. The unit, 15E, saw a $2,000-per-month price cut from $20,000 to $18,000, although fully furnished it can still be rented for $20,000 a month, according to on-site leasing agent Patty Schmitz. [more]

Other listings to hit the market are a $20,000-per-month rental at the Corner and the penthouses at Cary Tamarkin’s 456 West 19th Street

From left: 69 West 83rd Street, 200 West 72nd Street, 456 West 19th Street

An Upper West Side brownstone belonging to anesthesiologist and spine specialist Dr. Richard Kaul has returned to the market, this time with a higher price. The house was last listed in the summer of 2009 at $14 million, dropping its [more]

200 West 72nd Street and David Picket, president of the Gotham Organization

The Corner at 200 West, the Gotham Organization’s new 196-unit rental tower at 200 West 72nd Street and Broadway, is more than 50 percent leased just three months after the leasing office opened its doors, the developer announced today. The 20-story luxury property, where rents begin at $3,000 per month, is ready for immediate occupancy and is angling for Silver LEED certification. Amenities include around-the-clock doorman and concierge services, a fitness center, children’s playroom and a 10,000-square-foot roof terrace with a misting wall, bar, sun deck and movie screen. Trader Joe’s is slated to open in the building later this year. TRD

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200 West 72nd Street and David Picket, president of the Gotham Organization

The Corner at 200 West, the Gotham Organization’s new 196-unit rental tower at 200 West 72nd Street and Broadway, is more than 50 percent leased just three months after the leasing office opened its doors, the developer announced today. The 20-story luxury property, where rents begin at $3,000 per month, is ready for immediate occupancy and is angling for Silver LEED certification. Amenities include around-the-clock doorman and concierge services, a fitness center, children’s playroom and a 10,000-square-foot roof terrace with a misting wall, bar, sun deck and movie screen. Trader Joe’s is slated to open in the building later this year. TRD

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The $80 million loan for a 600,000-square-foot downtown Manhattan office building at 40 Rector Street was transferred to a special servicer yesterday, according to Fitch Ratings, Crain’s reported. The owner of the property, Philips International, defaulted on the loan, which matured June 1. As a result, it was transferred to J.E. Robert Company, a Va.-based special servicer that works out troubled loans. The Rector Street loan is secured by a 440,000-square-foot office property that Philips owns elsewhere in the Financial District, according to a recent Fitch Ratings U.S. CMBS focus performance
report. The report noted that many leases were up for renewal. Nine separate New York City agencies lease nearly half of the actual rentable space in the building, which is located between Washington and West streets. All of those leases are scheduled to expire next month. The lease of the third largest tenant in the 19-story building, Merrill Lynch, also expires next month. Manhattan-based Philips International owns and operates more than 3 million square feet of retail properties, 1.3 million feet of office space and two hotels throughout the East Coast. The company is also the co-developer of a new rental building, the Corner, at 200 West 72nd Street at the southwest corner of Broadway. [Crain's]

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Duane Reade and Starbucks are under immense pressure for retail locations, as financial institutions quest to open new branches in the metropolitan region. Major money center, regional and even banks headquartered in Puerto Rico are s [more]

From left: Jonathan Rose, head of Jonathan Rose Companies, a rendering of the Tapestry at 245 East 124th Street, and two images from the building’s model units

The leasing office at Tapestry, a 185-unit green residential building in East Harlem, is opening April 1, one of several new rental buildings hoping to take advantage of the traditionally stronger rental season. Residents at the 12-story building, located at 245 East 124th Street at Second Avenue, will be able to move into the building in May. For the 92 market-rate units, rents start at $1,850 for studios, $2,050 for one-bedrooms, $2,800 for two-bedrooms and $3,900 for three-bedrooms. All of the units are currently being offered with one-month free and a broker OP, or owner pays (the broker fee), according to Seth Rosner, managing director at Nancy Packes, the real estate company handling the leasing. The building, which will be complete by the move-in date, was developed by Jonathan Rose, the president of Jonathan Rose Companies, along with Lettire Construction. [more]

The Gotham Organization’s new 20-story Upper West Side rental tower finally has a name: “The Corner at 200 West.”
The 196-unit building, which wraps around an obtuse-angled corner, is located at 200 West 72nd Street and Broadway. The leasing office is open, and studios and one-, two- and three-bedroom units are available for occupancy April 1, Gotham announced today. A Trader Joe’s will open in the building later this year, the company said. The project broke ground in 2007 and rumors of the elaborate rooftop amenities at the building made waves this summer. The building, owned in a joint venture including Gotham, Rhodes NY and Philips International, will boast even more over-the-top amenities: an Andres Escobar- designed lobby with a 1,754-crystal chandelier and a curved accent wall made from 15-foot bronze rods. There’s also a “decompression room” — a 200-square-foot arched passageway made from pebbles lit with LED lights and “designed to impart a feeling of cleansing as the passerby transition from the outside world to the comforts of home.” There there’s the “The Corner Club,” which features a third-floor leisure terrace, lounge and fitness center. All the apartments come with their own Bosch washer and dryer. [more]

200 West, at 200 West 72nd Street

There are few corners of Manhattan as ill-served by architecture as the northwest and southwest corners of Broadway and 72nd Street. In the 1990s it saw the emergence of the Alexandria, a well-intentioned exercise in classical contextualism which, through a combination of weak design and poor construction values, resulted in a pallid eyesore at what should have been the focal point of the Upper West Side. As for 200 West which has just sprung up across the street at 200 West 72nd Street (with an alternate address of 2075 Broadway), the best that can be said is that, if anything, it makes the Alexandria look almost good by comparison. Its mongrelized aesthetic, devised by Handel Architects, is basically art deco in the heavily geometric and vaguely Chrysler-esque flanges that make up the staggered set-backs, starting around the 14th floor. But such adornments do little to enliven or relieve the sense of value engineering and general tedium of this 19-story development, undertaken by the Gotham Organization. The rest is a boxy mass that rises out of nowhere, curving, in true art deco fashion, round the corner where Broadway turns into 72nd Street. More

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