A firm focused on preserving affordable housing has acquired a 179-unit Harlem complex for $36 million, Crain’s reported, and renewed its Section 8 contract.
The complex, known as the East River Apartments, is comprised of five buildings at 109-125 East 130th Street and was sold by Tricham Housing Associates, public records show, after 28 years of ownership. [more]
The razing
of the Mars Bar for a glassy condominium is the latest sign of
gentrification in the East Village, and as Local East Village notes, it’s being
carried out by the man who helped kick off the process more than a decade ago. Donald
Capoccia, the head of BFC Partners, is replacing the gritty bar and housing
that rises two stories above it with a 60-unit apartment building at 11-17
Second Avenue, on the corner of East 1st Street.
Thanks to his commitment to include affordable housing, Capoccia got unanimous
support for the project from Community Board 3 and the backing of city
agencies. [more]
Nine tenants in two adjoining buildings at the corner of Second Avenue and East 1st Street will have the opportunity to purchase apartments in a new 12-story 60-unit condominium building when it opens on the site in two years for just $10 (tax-free), Crain’s reported. However, the former residents of the buildings housing the soon-to-be-demolished Mars Bar are not thrilled at the arrangement.
For developer BFC Partners, the deal makes good financial sense, Crain’s said. With a 1,261-square-foot, two-bedroom apartment across the street renting for $7,955 a month, the market-rate condos should make enough profit to allow for affordable units, making government subsidy unnecessary. It is more economical to build a new building and use market-rate rentals to subsidize free apartments for the tenants than to rehabilitate their five- and three-story structures. [more]
Riding the wave of reality television’s Faustian draw, developer BFC Partners’ Toren
residential development has launched a new ad campaign featuring
residents at the Downtown Brooklyn building “collectively and honestly
sharing their experiences at their new homes.” Residents at the
building were given flip cameras for two weeks, to document their
experiences in the 240-unit condo at 150 Myrtle Avenue. Since then, the
Toren team has posted the videos on its sales site, to “reach an
audience directly,” said Don Capoccia, managing partner with BFC.
Prices range from the mid-$300,000s to $1.7 million, according to the
developer, and the building is roughly 65 percent sold. Sales launched
March 2008, with Halstead Property exclusively handling marketing for
the development. In the video above, two neighbors cavort over a
haircut in a Toren unit. TRD
Downtown Brooklyn residential development Toren Tower at 150 Myrtle Avenue is drawing praise from World Architecture News, which described the 240-unit condominium as “worth waiting for,” due to its perceived aesthetic prowess. Almost a year after it was planned to be ready for move-ins, the Federal Housing Administration-approved Toren is aiming to receive a gold LEED certification. BFC Partners, Toren’s developer, told The Real Deal last year that the condo saw 40 of its units sold in a lottery.
Although many end-of-the-year residential and commercial real estate sales reports have yet to arrive, a new year grants the license to look back and evaluate how predictions and prognostications made last year panned out over the past 12 months. Many of the experts The Real Deal talked to last year had a bleak outlook for 2009 — and rightly so. But others missed the mark, either with too-optimistic predictions for recovery or overreaching pessimism that — if it’s possible — actually overstated how devastating the market would ultimately prove to be in 2009. Here, The Real Deal looks back at some of the top claims and predictions made in the beginning of last year to see who hit the nail on the head and who missed the mark. More
From the November issue: Like many other development firms, the Clarett Group rode the wave of
the real estate boom expertly, building successful condos in Manhattan
and other markets across the country. Like a host of other developers,
however, the company hit a damaging riptide in Downtown Brooklyn. A few
months ago, Clarett’s condo, the Forté, went back to its lender,
Eurohypo AG. The move was the most boldface example thus far of the
difficulties developers have encountered selling condos in Downtown
Brooklyn, generally defined as the section of the borough bounded by
Nassau Street to the north, Ashland Place to the east, Schermerhorn
Street to the south and Court Street to the west. That catch zone
encompasses several micro-neighborhoods, including the western edge of
Fort Greene. Several big developers are feeling pain in the saturated
area, which has been generating a lot of attention lately because three
new luxury rental towers are preparing to launch. [more]
