210 East 35th Street

After several years of delays, Iconic Development’s Sonu Arora has begun converting a former glass factory in Murray Hill into an 11-unit condo, Arora told The Real Deal today.

Plans for the six-story building, located at 210 East 35th Street between Second and Third avenues, call for ten 950-square-foot one-bedroom units and a 1,250-square-foot, two-bedroom penthouse. Arora said he expects construction to be complete by the summer of 2013. Marketing is scheduled to begin this fall. [more]

New Yorkers looking to purchase a “starter” apartment would be wise to stick to the East Side. Citing Streeteasy.com research, New York magazine reported that competition for selling studios and one-bedroom apartments in the Upper East Side, Lenox Hill, Turtle Bay and Murray Hill is so strong that more than one-third of those units have had their asking prices cut.

Apartments in those neighborhoods linger on the market for 33 to 42 weeks, on average, so owners “have to make their listings more compelling,” said Sofia Song, vice president of research at Streeteasy.com. [more]

One Park Avenue

From the July issue: “‘We are going to have a gun to our head,’” one real estate insider recalled top Vornado Realty Trust executive Glen Weiss saying, once the office giant decided to
go ahead with its acquisition of One Park Avenue.
In order to buy and recapitalize the building, Vornado had only weeks to nail down a large lease expansion with NYU Langone Medical Center, pay off mezzanine lenders, secure the first mortgage lender, and work out a deal with Murray Hill Properties and Cerberus Capital Management, the property’s owners.
It was sometime in January of this year, according to sources, that Vornado got serious about acquiring the building, which was underwater, as many Midtown properties were. One Park had been purchased at the peak of the market in 2007 by Murray Hill and Cerberus for $550 million. [more]

UDR, the third-largest publicly traded apartment owner in the U.S, has agreed to pay $581 million for two Manhattan rental communities — the 706-unit Rivergate complex at 401 East 34th Street in Murray Hill for $443 million and the 210-unit 21 Chelsea building at 120 West 21st Street for $138 million — in an effort to expand its presence in the city, Bloomberg News reported.

The company released news of the acquisitions yesterday, also saying it had purchased a 185-home Washington D.C. housing community for $106 million.

“The acquisition of these three communities continues our portfolio transformation and strategy of owning apartment homes in markets characterized by above-average job growth, low home affordability and limited new supply — three of the key drivers to strong rental growth,” Tom Toomey, president and CEO, said in the statement. [more]

From left: Citi Habitats’ Alexander Todd (MVP 2009 at 80 DeKalb), developer Bruce Ratner and Citi Habitats’ Cliff Finn and Gary Malin

Citi Habitats held its 2009 company awards ceremony this week, honoring its top-producing employees, with a keynote address provided by Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner (click here to see additional photos from the ceremony). Gary Malin, president of Citi Habitats, named Tracie Hamersley and Elizabeth Hamersley, who specializes in the Murray Hill neighborhood, the top sales agents in the company, and honored the Metzger Team, led by Andreas Metzger, as the top rental agent. Dan Marrello and Luciane Serifovic were honored as the top managing directors of the year. Additionally, Danny Davis was picked as the top producing agent company-wide and Todd Lewin was honored as rookie of the year. TRD
[more]

Fewer college grads coming to NYC, particularly Murray Hill (above), since recession

As the Manhattan real estate market sits at a standstill and once
filled-to-capacity towers rapidly empty out, landlords and brokers
struggle to fill apartments with a class of renters they would normally
count on at this time of year — out-of-state college graduates.

Because of the collapse of financial firms, some doe-eyed grads have abandoned plans to move to the Big Apple. “We used to get new hires from Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns looking
for apartments, but now that they’re out of business, it hurts our
business because we lose that secured flow of clients,” said Jeremy
Abelson, president of Urban Hostess, a company which helps place
college graduates in New York apartments. Real estate rental company Stonehenge Partners has beefed up its
presence on college campuses through its
Stonehenge-on-Campus program, launched two years ago, to snap up those few New York-bound grads. [more]

Co-op and condo boards are looking to cut costs because of the
recession. Carol Carson, board president of a 16-unit walk-up building
in Sunset Park, said maintenance fees should be raised so money can be
added to a reserve fund which would be used for emergency repairs, but
other residents disagree because they cannot afford the increases.
Instead, Silvana Vlacich, president of a 132-unit co-op in Murray Hill,
said that flexibility and re-evaluation is key for saving money. “My
advice is to do your homework on every aspect of your building,”
Vlacich said. “If you’re not getting service from your professionals,
or if your staff is not performing, you’ve got to fix it. Re-evaluate
everything you’re doing.” Attorney Ronald Sher, a partner at Himmelfarb
& Sher, also stresses the necessity of vigilance. “Boards have to
make sure that shareholders and unit owners are current in their
monthly payments,” he said. “Plenty of boards wait months before they
refer arrears to counsel, but boards are going to suffer hardships if
they do that now.” [more]