Alchemy Properties’ Kenneth Horn at his under-construction 57-unit condo at 15th Street and Fifth AvenueFrom the September issue: At the height of the boom, The Real Deal often wrote of the developers of massive condominium towers one-upping each other with newer, bigger buildings and the next best over-the-top amenity.
At Midtown’s 220-unit Platinum, there was the golf simulator and the massage room. At the 258-unit Riverhouse in Battery Park City, there was the pet spa. And at the Financial District’s 319-unit William Beaver House, basketball and squash courts, a hot tub and an outdoor shower were all part of the original attempts to woo buyers.
How things have changed. Now, with much of the inventory from the boom era’s mega-condos sold off, boutique buildings with fewer amenities are dominating the new development sales market. [more]

Clockwise from top left: Alchemy Properties’ Kenneth Horn, Bob Toll of Toll Brothers, Leonard Taub of Kaish & Taub, Jonathan Caplan of Jones Lang LaSalle, 376-380 Third Avenue and the State Supreme Court Building

From the August issue: For the owners of distressed properties, it’s a harrowing ride to stabilization. Note sale, foreclosure, bankruptcy or recapitalization, there is no easy path from financial trouble to stable footing. And while some savvy investors have seized control of valuable New York City properties, many owners and lenders have lost billions of dollars through distressed real estate sales and restructurings since the financial crisis began. This month The Real Deal examines five deals and how they unfolded.
In the last of the series, builder Kaish & Taub Development Group threw its struggling Gramercy Park condominium project into bankruptcy in a bid to hold on while its lender, Swiss bank UBS, moved to foreclose. The effort ultimately failed, and developer Toll Brothers bought the site at a court auction for $35.5 million. Click here to read the story. [more]

Alchemy President Ken Horn and Griffin Court

The Griffin Court Condominium in Hell’s Kitchen is seeing a surprising surge in sales, according to the property’s developer Alchemy Properties, which is marketing the building with Halstead Property.

Sales went from 15 percent sold to 50 percent sold with the closing of 20 units in the last two months.  – Miranda Neubauer [more]

Kenneth Horn and Isis Condominium

The 32-unit Isis Condominium on the Upper East Side has achieved its 17th sale, according to developer Alchemy Properties, meaning prospective buyers are privy to new lending options. It took three price cuts, but sales appear to be picking up in the building on the corner of East 77th Street and Second Avenue, as Streeteasy.com shows eight sales in the building since January, at least three of which closed for within 7 percent of their asking prices. Sales started at the building in the spring of 2008, according to Streeteasy.com, but Alchemy, which also markets the property, took units off the market after lowering prices in 2009. It relaunched sales again in February 2010 with lower prices. – Adam Fusfeld [more]

From left: Griffin Court, Alchemy’s Kenneth Horn and Steve Kliegerman,
president of Terra Development Marketing

[Updated at 5.15 p.m.] With sales underway for more than a year, and the building just recently
hitting the 30 percent sold mark, Griffin Court and its developer, Alchemy
Properties have brought in Halstead Property Development Marketing to
help sell the remaining units at the Hell’s Kitchen condominium. The Halstead team, led by Stephen Kliegerman, who The Real Deal recently reported was tapped to be president of Terra Development Marketing, will work alongside Alchemy’s existing sales team, headed up by Wendy Triffon. Alchemy announced the decision yesterday, in its first ever sales and marketing collaboration. Alchemy has been having a tough go of it since launching sales in March 2010 at the 95-unit Griffin Court, offering multiple incentives. [more]

The Real Deal has had an action-packed schedule. We hit up the Charity: Water event at 123 East 10th Street, the largest and priciest home available in the East Village, hosted by Rubicon Property. We stopped by Core’s cocktail party on the 17th floor of 812 Fifth Avenue, which was recently redesigned by architect Joseph Dirand. We also dropped by the Griffin Court condominium in Hell’s Kitchen, where Gumley Haft Kleier was hosting a viewing party of this week’s HGTV’s realty reality show “Selling New York.” Meanwhile, back at the office we were letting our fingers do the walking and got some fun nuggets. Click here for more. [more]

Isis Condominium at 303 East 77th Street

Closings have started at Isis Condominium at 303 East 77th Street, at the northeast corner of Second Avenue, developer Alchemy Properties announced today. The building is now over 30 percent sold with contracts pending on three additional units, Alchemy said. Isis contains 32 two-, three- and four-bedroom homes ranging from 1,205 to 2,559 square feet, in addition to four penthouses. Alchemy Properties recently reduced unit prices for the third time, with new prices ranging from $1.5 million to nearly $5 million. The 18-story Upper East Side building, which was designed by FXFOWLE Architects, also has ground-level retail space and two furnished common rooftop terraces. TRD
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Robert Knakal (left) and Kenneth Horn

After slumping in 2007, the market for new developments is beginning to bounce back, Crain’s reported. In Manhattan, the number of such sales nearly tripled to 16 in the first nine months of this year from the same period in 2009, according to Massey Knakal Realty Services. The average price more than doubled, to $38.75 million. Citywide, the number of sales grew 73 percent, while the average price also more than doubled, hitting $10.5 million.
“People are just more confident there is going to be an upswing in the economy,” said Robert Knakal, chairman of Massey Knakal. The growing number of building sales began to pick up late last year. Through the first nine months of 2010, the value of commercial property sales closed and under contract in Manhattan totaled $9.4 billion, up 168 percent from the $3.5 billion in deals completed all of last year, according to Cushman & Wakefield. According to residential developer Kenneth Horn, president of Alchemy Properties, “now is a really good time to buy.” Four months ago, he bought a development site at 35 West 15th Street for $16.6 million, according to city records, roughly 40 percent less than the owner wanted three years earlier. [Crain's]

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Concessions for condo buyers are largely a thing of the past for
Alchemy Properties, founder and president Kenneth Horn told the New
York Times. At 462 West 58th Street, for example, the company is now
shaving just 1 to 2 percent off its condominium asking prices, down
from between 12 and 14 percent last October, he said. Transfer and
mansion taxes are still going on Alchemy’s tab, though. Horn, who is
also set to complete the eco-friendly Griffin Court condo in Midtown
West this month, went on to explain that building green is ideal but
not always practical for a smaller developer. “The problem is it’s
expensive to apply for LEED certification — I think it was like a
quarter of a million dollars,” he said. “In a larger building, the
economies of scale work, but in a smaller building, when you’re a small
developer, it hurts.” Griffin Court, which sits around a
9,000-square-foot courtyard, has about four or five contracts signed
and six or seven in negotiation, he said. [NYT]

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Isis, the Upper East Side condo tower by Alchemy Properties, has just undergone its second round of across-the-board price cuts this year, Curbed reported. The 18-story, 32-unit building at 303 East 77th Street at Second Avenue had seen its prices slashed in February after returning from a sales hiatus, but apparently, that wasn’t enough to inspire many signed contracts. Units in the building, which at the initial sales launch ranged in price from $1.63 million for a two-bedroom to $5.5 million for the four-bedroom penthouse, now range from $1.348 million to $5.3 million for the same units, with an average asking price of around $1,500 per square foot. [Curbed]

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