334-336 West 46th Street

Eastern Consolidated is marketing a pair of distressed buildings on West 46th Street — New York City’s Restaurant Row — in an all-cash auction, the New York Observer reported.

The starting bid for 334-336 West 46th Street — which is the subject of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy case — will be $9.25 million. The two adjacent four-story mixed-use buildings have a total of 9,299 square feet between them, with 10 residential rental units and a single ground floor commercial space currently occupied by the Irish pub O’Flaherty’s, whose lease expires next year.  [more]

511-515 West 36th Street

Lalezarian Properties has paid $21.25 million for a commercial loft building in the Hudson Yards Special District, with plans to erect a residential rental development on the site, the New York Observer reported.

The Lake Success, N.Y.-based company intends to raze the existing six-story, 37,929-square-foot structure at 511-515 West 36th Street and build on that lot, as well as adjacent parcels it already owns at 519 and 525 West 36th Street. [more]

From left: the exterior and interior of 121 Greene Street and Lipa Lieberman of Eastern Consolidated

Two Soho retail properties — a condominium at 121 Greene Street and a co-op at 349 West Broadway — will hit the market today asking $35 million, The Real Deal has learned. The Greene Street building, between Prince and Houston streets, houses trendy eyewear purveyor Warby Parker’s first brick-and-mortar store, which opened last week. [more]

Peter Hauspurg
of Eastern Consolidated

Property prices are reaching record highs as developers make wild bids to claim available land, Crain’s reported. Eastern Consolidated, for example, had a client that lost out on a West 77th Street site when a competitor bid nearly 50 percent over the original price, insiders said.

“There is a scarcity of good development land in Manhattan,” Peter Hauspurg, Eastern Consolidated’s chief executive, told Crain’s. “Pricing has almost now doubled from the peak of 2007.” [more]

Barbara Byrne Denham

The real estate industry lost more  jobs in March than any other sector of the workforce except government, shedding 1,200 in just a month, according to new figures released by Eastern Consolidated. Construction, in stark contrast, added 9,000  jobs from February to March, bolstered by the demand for construction post-Sandy, the numbers show.

The report does not explain the drop in real estate jobs, although Eastern Consolidated’s chief economist Barbara Byrne Denham states that she fully expects the industry to recover the positions. [more]

From left: Michael Shah, David Schechtman and 58-60 Ninth Avenue

DelShah Capital has purchased a 10,839-square-foot Meatpacking District building for $18.2 million from Icon Realty Management, the company said today. The property is located at 58-60 Ninth Avenue, near 15th Street, and stands four stories. [more]

Though New York City has lost tax revenue from the securities industry, property owners and hotels are picking up the slack when it comes to filling the city’s coffers, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a study by Eastern Consolidated. [more]

36 Riverside Drive

A 7,380-square-foot residential building dating back to the 1880s has come on the market at 36 Riverside Drive. The property, listed by Eastern Consolidated’s Adelaide Polsinelli for $8.5 million, includes eight residential units.

Known as Wyman House, the property has operated as a bed and breakfast since 1986. It can be delivered vacant and converted to a single-family townhouse or for use by an institution, Polsinelli said. [more]

The Tudor-style properties on the Upper West Side’s Pomander Walk.

Investors are betting on the Upper West Side, despite its low capitalization rates and lack of cachet as a trendy neighborhood, the Wall Street Journal reported.  [more]

Peter Hauspurg

One would expect that in a down market, when property values are on the decline, the city’s collection of corresponding taxes would fall as well. However, a report from Eastern Consolidated shows that the volume of real property taxes in New York City increased every year from 2005 to 2012, regardless of market conditions, Real Estate Weekly reported. For example, property tax collections increased 17 percent between 2009 and 2011, even as the market value for citywide properties fell, the report says.

Eastern Consolidated pegged this development to an expansion of the tax base, as the city added new properties, among other reasons. [more]