God’s Love We Deliver in Soho
(Source: Streetsblog)

Quinlan Development Group will pay $4 million for air rights from God’s Love We Deliver — a Soho nonprofit that is expanding its headquarters in the neighborhood — and intends to build a 14-story residential condominium project, the New York Times reported.

The charity, which provides the sick and homebound with meals, wants to sell the development rights to raise funds for a $26 million expansion at 166 Sixth Avenue, at Spring Street. [more]

80 Forsyth Street in center (credit: PropertyShark)

A synagogue that has been converted into a professional artist studio has hit the market for $6.2 million, Curbed reported. [more]

Midtown East

The city is moving forward with its proposal to rezone Midtown East, and will kickstart the official six-month public review process in early April, Crain’s reported. At a presentation Thursday to a community board task force examining the rezoning proposal, the Department of City Planning revealed that the city would sell air rights for $250 per square foot within the rezoned area, and identified 32 buildings — including the Yale Club, the Roosevelt Hotel and the MetLife tower — as “potential” landmarks that would be protected from the upzoning. [more]

From left: William and Arthur Zeckendorf (credit: Marc Becker) and Christ Church

Developers William and Arthur Zeckendorf will pay a record $600 per square foot this week  for air rights above their planned 60th street luxury tower, the New York Times reported. The total dollar amount: $40 million for roughly 70,000 square feet. [more]

Inset: Robert Shapiro

“What I did for the gig” is a weekly web feature that chronicles the outlandish, risky and comical strategies that residential and commercial real estate brokers have used to land listings, clients and jobs.

Negotiating for space in Midtown Manhattan is a tough business, especially when faced with an uninterested seller and a looming deadline. For Robert Shapiro, a broker who orchestrated a 1986 REBNY award-winning assemblage deal for the Crowne Plaza Times Square, the challenge called for a stunt that would let him rise to the occasion. Literally…. [more]

From left: Tower Verre, Vicki Been and Setai Fifth Avenue

A longtime city program that gives landmarked properties the ability to sell their air rights to developers across the street in a “kitty corner” transaction is woefully underused, and some industry insiders have been discussing plans for air rights reform. Eager to avoid getting tangled in expensive bureaucratic red tape, developers currently prefer to engage in as-of-right zoning lot merger transfers with these landmarked buildings, thereby rendering the city’s special provision for landmarks largely useless, insiders say. … [more]

From left: St. Patrick’s Cathedral, St. Bartholomew’s Church and Central Synagogue

A plan to rezone Midtown East and fuel new development in the area even has the pious licking their lips.  Three Midtown East houses of worship – St. Patrick’s Cathedral, St. Bartholomew’s Church and Central Synagogue — want to sell some 2 million square feet of air space above their landmarked buildings, a commodity that could be worth nearly $400 million, according to Crain’s.

The houses of worship are hoping that the city will grant them the same flexibility regarding air rights that it is granting itself under the rezoning plan. For one, the owners of the architectural gems argue that they are desperate for a capital injection. [more]

From left: Sherwood Equities CEO Jeffrey Katz and 508 West 20th Street

Sherwood Equities is selling air rights near the High Line for $500 per square foot and capitalizing on the quickly vanishing supply of buildable space in West Chelsea.

The development firm told the New York Post that about two-thirds of the 20,000 square feet of air rights it acquired when it bought the High Line-adjacent building shell at 508 West 20th Street for $7.3 million last April is in contract for the sky high price. [more]

A former Prospect Heights property owner is claiming to own the air rights to a part of the site where Bruce Ratner plans to build his new Nets arena and is suing the state for trying to “steal” it. Peter Williams, who already handed over his property to Ratner in exchange for cash, said the state never condemned his air rights above and around 24 Sixth Avenue when it took the building through eminent domain and that the embattled Atlantic Yards project cannot move forward until the issue is settled.
… [more]

A Lower East Side co-op complex has discovered that it is in possession of one million square feet of air rights, a “previously unknown asset” valued at $100 million, a memo distributed by the co-op board to the residents said, according to Curbed. While the value of the land rights at Seward Park, located at 264 East Broadway between Clinton and Montgomery streets, is still an estimated figure, it could bring in big bucks if the board decides to sell the rights. … [more]