A prime Midtown East development site at 249-53 East 50th Street has hit the market, with approximately 44,000 buildable square feet and 55 feet of frontage between Second and Third avenues, Ariel Property Advisors, the exclusive listing agent for the property announced today. The site came online this morning with no noted asking price, a spokesperson for the company told The Real Deal, a tactic which some industry experts say brokers are increasingly employing to gauge the market’s interest as the economy continues to fluctuate.

“When they put a price tag on [a site,] they may be undershooting,” said one commercial broker active within the industry, particularly in this economy. [more]

The pace of New York City multi-family sales remained strong in September, according to a report from Ariel Property Advisors released today, with 41 transactions citywide, totaling $402 million.

There was a 31 percent increase in the number of buildings sold in September compared with August, but a 9 percent dip in dollar volume, the report notes. The number of buildings sold was almost double the number sold in September 2010, when 24 buildings worth a total of $204 million traded.

“The steady activity through September suggests the multi-family market is poised for a strong finish through the end of the year,” said Shimon Shkury, president of Ariel Property Advisors. – Katherine Clarke [more]

From left: Gifford Miller and Robert Frost, partner at Signature Urban
Properties

The Department of City Planning will be holding a public hearing on former City Council Speaker Gifford Miller’s Bronx real estate project later this month, the Wall Street Journal reported.

As previously reported, Miller and longtime friend Robert Frost, a partner at Signature Urban Properties, are planning to transform a derelict section of the Bronx near the Sheridan Expressway with 10 new “affordable” apartment buildings, they said.

The $400 million Bronx project is the pair’s first ground-up venture, the Journal said; the area is currently home to a strip of car repair shops and smaller residential buildings. Signature, founded in 2007, is currently working to have it rezoned to allow for the development. [more]

Shimon Shkury, the former Massey Knakal Realty Services partner who left to start his own firm, Ariel Property Advisors, recently hosted a fundraiser for Legal Outreach on the penthouse lounge of the Atelier Condominium in Midtown (see photos above). It’s a non-profit organization benefiting youth eductation for which Shkury serves on the advisory board. The Moinian Group-developed building, at 635 West 42nd Street, has an indoor pool, a basketball court, a tennis court, a 12,000-square-foot health center, daily breakfast and is reportedly home to several celebrities. Though no celebrities were spotted at the Shkurys’ event, the party did draw some notable names from the real estate industry. — Adam Fusfeld

From left: Shimon Shkury, president of Ariel Property Advisors, Michael Totorici, vice president of Ariel, 212 Eighth Avenue and 245 Mulberry Street

Rental property acquisitions in New York City tumbled 53 percent in May, after reaching a furious pace the prior month.

Throughout the city, 29 buildings with a total of 1,078 apartments sold for a total of $144 million last month, compared with April, when 55 buildings with 2,193 units sold for a total of $308 million, a new report from Ariel Property Advisors shows (see report below). Sales last month were also below May 2010, when 47 buildings traded for a total value of $199 million.

The report covers sales of multi-family properties with 10 or more units above $1 million, of more than 5,000 square feet.

Yet the decline in sales activity was not seen as a broad cooling in the market, Michael Tortorici, a vice president at Ariel Property, said. The dip was instead likely due to investor jitters earlier this year after a rush of buying at the end of 2010.

“There was a period in the first quarter of the year, in which people wanted to see how the market was going and how the economy was going,” Tortorici said. “And I think that resulted in fewer contracts signed at that point.”

Most investment sales close two or three months after the contract is signed, meaning buyers in February and March were more cautious about signing deals.

Queens had the most dollar volume, where just two properties traded for a combined $59.9 million, accounting for more than 40 percent of the total $114 million in sales.

In a positive sign, the average price per foot for Manhattan properties rose from $384 per foot in April, to $429 per foot in May. Two locations, at 212 Eighth Avenue in Chelsea and 245 Mulberry Street in Nolita, averaged more than $625 per square foot, the report says.

The total figure of $144 million last month was also lower than a six-month moving average, which has not fallen below $170 million over the past 12 months.

But speaking anecdotally, Shimon Shkury, Ariel Property’s president, said bidding activity was up.

The multi-family data comes as a contrast to a Crain’s article yesterday that said office building sales for the second quarter (which closes Thursday) were far higher than the first quarter of the year. 

ArielPa-MultifamilyMay2011 (1) [more]

The Apex condo From the June issue: Robb Pair, president of the brokerage and development firm Harlem Lofts, had an uncomfortably close-up view of that neighborhood’s tumbling sales market in recent years. He estimates that the three-family townhouse that he owns at 119th Street and Lenox Avenue, where he lives with his family, has lost about a million dollars in value since its peak in last decade’s boom.
Among Harlem’s woes has been a glut of new condominium units, many of which were located in troubled buildings that just missed the boom years or suffered during the downturn. The number of new condo and co-op units in Upper Manhattan — Harlem and neighborhoods to the north — has risen steadily since 2008, with an accompanying slide in average sale prices. [more]

From left: 321 Lenox Avenue (credit: PropertyShark) and H&H Bagels at 639 West 46th Street

Midtown-based Delshah Capital was poised to win at auction a pre-war, 33-unit Harlem apartment building saddled with $14 million of debt, but was blocked last Thursday when the owner filed for bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, last month, Delshah, led by principal and CEO Michael Shah, was expecting to take control of the two-story H&H Bagels building at 639 West 46th Street, until the Toro family company that owns the property filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy, blocking a sale.

Such roadblocks are common for buyers of distressed debt, now wrangling with owners over who will take over the properties.

In the most recent instance, Staten Island-based real estate investor Lorenzo De Luca, through his Lenox 126 Realty, filed for Chapter 11 protection to block a foreclosure sale at the apartment building at 321 Lenox Avenue, located one
block from the popular Harlem Center mall at 125 West 125th Street. [more]

Condominium and residential rental markets have begun to stabilize in Northern Manhattan, according to a 2010 report released today by Ariel Property Advisors, a New York City property investment sales firm formed in January. The number of condo unit transactions in Northern Manhattan climbed to 437 in 2010, a 44 percent jump from 2009, when 303 properties traded hands, while the average price per square foot slid 6.6 percent to $537. The residential rental market remained stable, with average free markets holding steady at $26 per square foot and rent regulated units — which make up a large percentage of the market — remaining relatively flat at $17 per square foot. TRD

From left: Ken Krasnow of Massey Knakal Realty Services; Eastern Consolidated’s Ety Lee; Eastern Consolidated’s Jerome Benayoum; and Lon Rubackin, a managing director at GFI Capital

Commercial brokerage firm Massey Knakal Realty Services has temporarily replaced Kenneth Krasnow, the managing director of the firm’s Brooklyn office, because he is not licensed as required by the New York State Department of State, company CEO Paul Massey told The Real Deal this morning.

Krasnow had been the head of the Brooklyn office since 2008. He will be replaced by Cory Rosenthal, corporate vice president, until Krasnow obtains his license, Massey said.

“[In the] interim, Cory Rosenthal, corporate vice president, will take over day to day management of Queens and Brooklyn until Ken resolves the license issue,” Massey said.
[more]

Commercial firms reported a strong increase in investment sales volume for the city overall in 2010. That activity, coupled with a higher average price-per-square foot for trophy office towers, has given a general impression that prices have risen overall in the city. For example Cushman & Wakefield in January showed a 73 percent increase in pricing from 2009 to 2010 for Manhattan’s prime office towers, even as it noted the sharp rise was based on a limited number of transactions.

But investment sales brokers Robert Knakal, Marco Lala and Shimon Shkury, tell Insights from The Real Deal (see video above) that not all of New York City is seeing strong increases in pricing, and in some areas of the outer boroughs, values are still falling.

Knakal, chairman of Massey Knakal Realty Services, says, “The trends in value continue to slide, however, in Queens and Brooklyn.” Knakal says that even in Manhattan values were weak, citing a Kips Bay owner who was converting a retail space to residential because commercial leasing was too slow.

Lala, an associate vice president of investments at Marcus & Millichap who specializes in Northern Manhattan and the Bronx, tells Insights from The Real Deal that, “There are some areas where I still think there is a lot of pain ahead.” He mentions Melrose, Soundview and the Highbridge areas of the Bronx as examples.

Parts of Northern Manhattan remain flat, says Shkury, president of Ariel Property Advisors. “I believe areas of East Harlem still have a ways to go up,” he says.
[more]