The Real Deal New York

Over the course of the past year, the Corcoran Group has made a massive effort to target different market segments through its acquisitions.

There have been multiple buys in Palm Beach and the Hamptons to target the second-home market. Now, with the company’s biggest buy yet in the purchase of rental agency Citi Habitats, Corcoran has the biggest share of the Manhattan rental market and has become the largest residential real estate company in the city.

“We thought it would be nice to capture renters right out of college,” said Pam Liebman, CEO of Corcoran. “Then they buy an apartment, later a townhouse, and when they get older we send them to Palm Beach.”

“People keep asking us if we’re going to buy a funeral home next,” she said.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be surprising, considering Corcoran seems to be buying everything else in sight these days.

The giant merger with Citi Habitats brings together more than 1,300 agents in Manhattan alone (around 800 from Corcoran, a number that doesn’t include the company’s agents in the Hamptons and Palm Beach). Douglas Elliman has around 940 agents in Manhattan, the second highest total.

Citi Habitats’ offices will now operate as Citi Habitats, a division of the Corcoran Group. Citi Habitats affiliate SoLOFTS was also acquired, and will do business as the Corcoran Group.

All parties declined to provide a sales price for the deal.

Competitors weighed in on the deal with reactions ranging from “a step back for Corcoran” to “remains to be seen” to a good “synergistic buy.”

Frederick Peters, president of Warburg Realty Partnership, said the deal made sense for Corcoran in its quest to become the biggest.

“It is a synergistic buy, because Corcoran isn’t strong in rentals,” he said. “As they become enormous, it becomes more about going after the middle market, because that is where the transactions are.”

Peters said the acquisition won’t affect the upper-end market that Corcoran serves, even though rentals “are generally not an upscale business and Citi Habtats is not an upscale brand.”

“I don’t think it will have an impact on Corcoran’s high-end business,” Peters said. “They are such a well-known brand, and everyone already knows about them.”

Peters also said he didn’t think the recent upswing in the rental market had anything to do with the timing of the deal.

Liebman said discussions with Citi Habitats CEO Andrew Heiberger, who started the company a decade ago at the age of 25, about a merger began a few months ago with a breakfast at The Regency Hotel.

Heiberger, who will remain on as president of Citi Habitats, said he “wasn’t shopping the company around” at the time, but had already been approached by two other major residential brokerages in Manhattan, which he declined to name.

Citi Habitats, which controls around 50 percent of the Manhattan rental market according to Liebman, branched out into sales around three years ago. And while Heiberger said the sales division was “doing quite well,” he said the merger with Corcoran “accelerates our business plan by five to seven years.”

Heiberger compared Corcoran to a “Harvard” and Citi Habitats to the “University of Michigan,” saying, “they dress us up a little bit.”

On the technology front, the respective websites of the two companies will be linked, but the specifics haven’t been worked out yet, Heiberger said.

While Peters of Warburg Realty said the deal made sense, Halstead president Diane Ramirez seemed to have slightly more questions.

Ramirez said the results of the merger “remain to be seen,” adding that the sheer size of the combining companies could be a concern.

“The size aspect alone needs to be watched,” she said. “We’ll have to wait and see how the synergy occurs.”

Ramirez also noted that while her company has had a consistent presence in the middle-to-high-end rental market for the last 15 years, other companies like Corcoran had in the past embraced rentals then distanced themselves from them. Liebman acknowledged Corcoran is currently “not known for its rental strength,” and lacks a formal rental division.

This time around wasn’t the only occasion on which a deal had been floated between the two companies, apparently.

Heiberger told The Real Deal last July that he had approached Corcoran about working together in 1998, and that they had rejected his offer outright.

“Their view was that sales are very sophisticated and they don’t want to muddy their reputation with a dirty rental,” Heiberger said at the time. “I’m not saying they said those exact words. But that was the overall gist of the meeting.”

Corcoran didn’t confirm the meeting taking place at the time, but if it did, the company’s sentiments have clearly changed.

Dottie Herman, CEO of Douglas Elliman, had relatively little to say about the merger, beyond pointing out that her company “has a pretty big rental division.” Douglas Elliman also appears poised to grow to Brooklyn soon (see story in this issue).

One of biggest critics of the merger was Daren Hornig, CEO of Dwelling Quest, a company looking to take away market share from Citi Habitats.

“It’s like Peter Luger’s going out to buy a hot dog vendor on every corner because they are there,” he said. “I give Andrew [Heiberger] a lot of credit for creating a large and well known company, but I think it’s a step back for Corcoran.”

While Corcoran and Citi Habitats both seem to be banking on the fact that they’ll be able to turn Citi Habitats renters into Corcoran buyers, Hornig said the approach won’t work.

“To think there is going to be any continuity from one office to another, much less from one company to another, is wrong,” he said. “The companies don’t have lead sharing and referrals for people sitting next to one another. The same rental person doesn’t even do same rental transaction with the same person three years later.”

That concern appeared to be on the minds of both Liebman and Heiberger when they spoke to a class at The Real Estate Academy the day after the deal was announced. Both appeared to want to reinforce the notion that brokers need to hold on to clients, in order to convert them from renters to buyers, and to keep them as buyers or sellers.

“One of the number one things that is not being done is maintaining contact with clients,” said Heiberger, giving the recent example of a Citi Habitats broker who rented TV chef Emeril Lagasse an apartment but didn’t maintain contact. Douglas Elliman just stepped in to sell Lagasse an apartment the other day for $3.7 million, Heiberger said. “People even want to hear that nobody called if nobody called.”

“We’ve done surveys that show that sellers say the number one thing they don’t get from brokers is feedback, and enough contact,” added Liebman during the talk.

Peters of Warburg said the idea that renters will become buyers will work, but said it would be necessary for Corcoran to improve the training that Citi Habitats agents traditionally receive.

“It will work, with the caveat that those agents have to provide good service the first time around,” said Peters.

As the The Real Deal went to press, Corcoran announced it had just purchased 45-agent McCann Coyner Clarke Real Estate Inc. in Palm Beach. Read more on the deal.

One developer s take on best and worst areas to build Comments

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A look at new residential construction and the next up-and-coming neighborhoods [more]

The meatpacking district in West Chelsea isn’t just a nightlife hot spot anymore. A few hours after the bleary-eyed partiers leave, the streets get busy with office workers preparing to clock in at some of the many creative companies setting up shop in the area.

Many advertising, media and other creative businesses have signed deals to move into the neighborhood, from the apparel maker Theory, which has leased an entire 60,00-square-foot building on Gansevoort Place, to Estee Lauder’s salon and hair-care subsidiary Bumble & Bumble, and the Food Network, a new tenant in the Chelsea Market.

Even financial services firms are getting on board: Alexander von Furstenberg, son of Diane von Furstenberg and stepson of Barry Diller, will move Arrow Investments, his private investment firm, to 408 West 14th St., between Ninth and Tenth Avenues. The company’s offices are currently in the MetLife building.

“This is the next frontier in office development,” said Douglas Grabiner, managing director of Newmark & Co., which represented the landlord in the Arrow Investments lease. “It’s a way for companies to show that they are forward-thinking and unique, not simply taking space in a fungible building.”

“It’s the cutting edge neighborhood for creative companies to be,” agreed Bruce Sinder, president of Sinvin Realty Corp., which focuses on Downtown office and retail space, and represented the landlord in the Theory transaction. In that deal, the retailer took an entire building and will use the ground floor for retail and the upper floors for a showroom andécorporate headquarters, Sinder said.

More established buildings are also benefitting from the neighborhood’s cachet.

111 Eighth Avenue, a 3-million-square-foot building that occupies an entire city block from Eighth to Ninth Avenues and 15th to 16th Streets-one-and-a-half times the size of the MetLife building – is about 95 percent occupied, says Brian Gell, an executive vice president with CB Richard Ellis, who represents the building along with senior associate Susan MacWilliams.

“We have transactions pending for 300,000 square feet for future space, when leases expire for older tenants-distributors and warehouses,” Gell says.

The building houses such tenants as BarnesandNoble.com, DoubleClick and Deutsch Advertising, which recently increased the amount of space it leases from 110,000 square feet to 130,000 square feet.

What’s driving it? The movement of many galleries from SoHo to Chelsea and the recent influx of trendy clubs and restaurants certainly helped, brokers say.

“Many companies are looking for an atmosphere that will excite and energize their people, both in terms of neighborhood and environment,” Gell says, referring to both the neighborhood and the aesthetic amenities associated with converted industrial buildings, from high ceilings to wide columns.

With many low-rise buildings and streets that are off the grid, Sinder says the meatpacking district has an almost European flavor. No one denies that Chelsea Market has also been a driving force, Grabiner says. The culinary cornucopia in the first floor of the multibuilding market is a destination, he says.

Put it all together and what you get is demand that outpaces supply and rents that outpace those in lower Manhattan and Midtown South. At 111 Eighth Avenue, rents are in the mid-$30s per sf, Gell says.

For the neighborhood as a whole, rents range from the mid-$20s to the mid-$30s, he says, up from the low to mid $20s five years ago, but still below their $40 peak during the dot-com boom, Gell says.

“It comes down to location, not economics,” Grabiner says.

All three Manhattan office markets showed strong activity in May, according to a recent report by CB Richard Ellis.

As Midtown continued to experience brisk leasing, activity in Midtown South increased 47 percent over the previous month, and Downtown leasing more than doubled the rate of the previous month.

But a report by Colliers ABR came to a different conclusion, saying the month was “a bit weak” in regard to leasing activity.

The Manhattan class A vacancy rate climbed to 10.7 percent in May from 10.6 percent in April, still significantly less than the 11.3 percent recorded in December.

The rise was largely due to the Times Square Tower coming online. That added 700,000 square feet of direct space to the market. It was unclear whether the CBRE report included the addition of space.

The Colliers report also said that there is a “strong belief” that the rest of the year will see a pickup because of more tenants entering the market.

Even financial services firms have begun to add employees in the rebounding economy and are searching for additional space once again, the report said.

Partly as a result of a desire by financial services firms to hold space for their own use, “shadow space/future space on the market” dropped in the past five months from approximately 9 million square feet in December 2003 to 5.3 million square feet in May.

Class A average asking rents dropped to $47.55 per square foot from $47.68 a square foot in April, though they remain higher than the $45.59 a square foot at the close of 2003, the report said.

Midtown

With 1.16 million square feet in leasing, Midtown continued to see brisk activity in May–the seventh consecutive month with volume exceeding 1 million square feet, according to the CBRE report.

Year to date, leasing has exceeded activity during the same period last year by 65 percent, the report said.

The top Midtown leases were Dreyfus Corporation’s renewal and expansion for 372,000 square feet at 200 Park Avenue and Rodale Press, Inc.’s lease for 114,000 square feet at 733 Third Avenue.

The Colliers report found that with approximately 700,000 square feet of direct space added to the market with Times Square Tower, the vacancy rate in Midtown climbed to 10.6 percent from 10.2 percent in April.

The increase may be short-lived, especially in the new tower, as a number of tenants in the market are looking for new or expansion space.

“For the large users, the choices seem to be narrowing at the high end,” said Howard Nottingham, executive managing director at Studley.

The class A average asking rent closed May down slightly at $54.17 per square foot from $55.02 per square foot in April, the Colliers report said.

Midtown South

While leasing in Midtown increased over the previous month’s activity by nearly half, there was negative net absorption of 197,000 square feet in Midtown South in May, according to the CBRE report. Absorption for the year to date moved slightly into negative territory.

Asking rents remained stable, increasing by 13 cents in May to $31.88 per square foot.

The top Midtown South leases were the Federated Department Stores’ lease for 52,000 square feet at 11 Penn Plaza and Automatic Data Processing’s 32,000-square-foot lease at 1 Penn Plaza.

The Colliers report did not include data on Midtown South.

Downtown

With Downtown leasing activity double the month before, availability tightened and absorption for the month was positive, the CBRE report said.

For the first five months of 2004, velocity has exceeded the year-ago performance by 18 percent, the report said. Availability improved by 0.1 percent.

The top Downtown leases were New York State Department of Transportation’s lease for 34,000 square feet at 199 Water Street and the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey’s lease for 19,000 square feet at 115 Broadway.

The Colliers report also found that the Downtown class A market improved in May, with the vacancy rate closing at 12.5 percent from 12.9 percent in April.

Meanwhile, the class A average asking rent climbed slightly to $33.99 a square foot from $33.70 a square foot in April.

Jobs

The city comptroller’s office said the city’s economy grew 7 percent during the first quarter of the year, its highest quarterly growth rate since late 1999.

The office cited 21,100 new payroll jobs during that quarter and a 27 percent jump in personal income tax revenues as the main factors indicating growth.

Following frenzied buying and selling in the first half of the year, residential brokers in Manhattan said they are now seeing a stable and steady marketplace.

Rising interest rates have cooled the market, buyers are feeling less pressure to make a decision, and brokers say prices are increasing more slowly.

“We’re at the flat part of the stairs,” said Donna Olshan, president of Olshan Realty. “We’re taking a breather from that torrid spring and basically going back to more of a stable market.”

Neil Binder, principal of Bellmarc, said that buyers “don’t feel the same pressure. They’re saying, if I don’t make a decision quickly, maybe I can make a better deal in a few months.”

As a result, “a lot of brokers are not out there as aggressively as they were,” said Binder.

The drop-off was apparent by May. For that month, there was a 17 percent decline in signed contracts in Manhattan south of 96th Street compared to April, the largest decline in nine months, according to a report by appraisers Mitchell, Maxwell & Jackson.

In June, the number of signed contracts actually increased by one percent, according to an MMJ study. The report also found the average contract price for the month edged up one percent, to close at $917,864, compared to $910,548 recorded in May.

“We anticipated the number of signed contracts to continue dropping, and this may have been the last gasp before mortgage rates climb again,” said Jeffrey Jackson, chairman of MMJ.

Jacky Teplitzky, executive vice president at Douglas Elliman, said that much of the frenzy that has abated has occurred in the market for one-bedrooms and studios.

“In the two-bedroom, two-bathroom category, the inventory is very tight, so it’s a different story,” Teplitzky said in late June. “The luxury market has also been very active, because it’s not so driven by interest rates.”

Pricing of apartments has also changed since the first quarter. “From January to February or from February to March, I would take what happened the month before and add 5 percent,” she said. “Now pricing is the same as the month before.”

Binder said there have been some price reductions at Bellmarc. “On about 10 percent of our exclusives, the price has come down,” he said.

Some sellers still want to believe it’s the overheated first quarter, said Teplitzky.

“I just turned away two listings that were way overpriced,” she said. “The sellers were living in la-la land.” Teplitzky said that nearly all buyers mention the press coverage several months ago about the average apartment price in Manhattan reaching $1 million. “That’s the first thing they tell me about,” she said.

Michael Goldenberg, Halstead’s executive director of sales for the West Side, agreed. “Some people are testing to see if they can get a price considered aggressive,” he said. “But if you want to sell, you are adjusting.”

Binder said the “pause” that he sees in market will “readjust soon, and we’ll have a very good fall.” He added that he doesn’t think increases in interest rates will go anywhere dramatic. The Fed raised the benchmark interest rate by 1/4 point at the end of June.

Teplitzky said the slower market may just be a seasonal adjustment, and “we don’t know if this is a permanent change.”

Olshan pegged a resurgence at the start of next year. “I think the market will come roaring back in early 2005,” she said. “The economy is getting better. The dollar is getting weaker, and the Euro is getting stronger, and I think we’ll see a lot of foreign investment.”

Alan Rogers, chairman of Douglas Elliman, said at a recent industry conference that he thinks the market will “be steady for the next two years.”

“When interest rates climb, there will be an overreaction against that,” he said. “People will psychologically take a while to get used to it.”

Despite the less frenzied climate, however, brokers still said that the market remains strong.

“I like to tell people that the last quarter was a good year,” said Binder.

“Never in the history of our company had I had a period like that. It was 100 percent over the year before.”

“There is a tremendous amount of demand that is still present now,” he said. “It’s a more durable market, more under control.”

Goldenberg pointed out that interest rates remain low.

“In 2000, we were at 8.75 percent,” he said. “And everyone is freaking out about 7 percent interest rates.”

There is no question that rentals are rebounding, but how fast and how far will they go?

Boosted by increased hiring and refugees who had given up on the frenzied sales market, the rental market first started to show signs of life in February, said Fritz Frigan, director of leasing of Halstead.

Now the market – which has been largely downtrodden since the dot-com bubble burst – is going strong.

“Things are in full swing,” said Frigan. “After four years, this is not going to be just a seasonal thing.”

Frigan said his data showed a 1.5 percent increase in rents from October 1 through March 31, the most recent data available. Rents had actually been dropping from October to January, so the numbers for recent months are even stronger than they first might appear, he said.

Going forward, Frigan said he expects 5 to 6 percent growth in price of rents between the start of this year and the start of 2005.

Andrew Heiberger, president of Citi Habitats, now a division of Corcoran, said rents have gone up with lower-priced units as well as at the upper end of the market.

“We’re starting to see rents rise on units that go for $1,600 to $2,500,” he said. “Properties at the high end, above $6,000 per month, are doing well as a result of the overinflated condo market.”

Frigan said the high-end rental market, which drew buyers who grew disgruntled with the sales market, heated up first, and “now the small one-bedroom prices are going up as well,” largely as a result of more hiring by companies in the city.

Heiberger said the vacancy rate for rental apartments in Manhattan is “well under 2 percent,” and added he expects the market to get “tighter and tighter.”

Many landlords have stopped paying brokers’ commissions or offering other incentives such as one or two months’ free rent.

Heiberger said that of 500 buildings offering incentives at the beginning of the year, one-third had dropped off the list as of mid-June.

“We might see OP [owner paid] concessions drop out by summer’s end,” said Heiberger. “If they don’t, we’ll probably have to wait until January of next year.”

Last month, Glenwood Management, which has more than 20 luxury apartment buildings in Manhattan, said it would no longer pay fees to brokers for two- and three-bedroom apartments. The company said the move was prompted by the turnaround in the rental market in the past six months.

Glenwood said it would continue to pay broker fees for large apartments in its three new buildings: Liberty Plaza in the Financial District, Hampton Court at Gracie Point and the Grand Tier across from Lincoln Center, however.

While new projects have generally offered the most incentives, some “lower quality walkup buildings” are still paying brokers’ fees, though it’s “going in the direction of less and less,” Frigan said.

The Hell’s Kitchen area, site of new rental construction, still offers considerable incentives.

“Secondary locations like Clinton still need work,” said Neil Binder, principal of Bellmarc.

The overall strength of the rental market has lead some brokerages focused on sales to get into the rental game.

The merger in which Corcoran bought Citi Habitats seems well timed from the point of view of taking advantage of the improving rental market.

J.C. DeNiro & Associates, a boutique firm in Chelsea, decided to start up a rental program for the summer, presumable to grab a piece of the action.

Rentals normally represent only 5 percent of the firm’s business, partner and co-owner Christopher Mathieson said.

The “summer sales associate program” involved recruiting students at colleges to work as rental agents for the summer. The group of seven associates started in early June, and some already plan to stay on past the summer, Mathieson said.

“We got a huge amount of response,” said Mathieson. “They’re fully licensed and trained, and it’s a stimulating way to spend a summer and make money.”

Halstead has joined the ranks of Manhattan firms expanding to Brooklyn, and others will soon follow.

Last month, Halstead bought 25-agent William S. Ross Real Estate, with offices in Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill. Founder Bill Ross will remain as head of Brooklyn operations for Halstead; he said he expects to open new offices in the next year.

Meanwhile, Douglas Elliman CEO Dottie Herman said in late June that her firm will open up in Brooklyn “within three months.” She declined to name the company Elliman is acquiring, and did not specify if it plans to start from scratch in the borough, citing “confidentiality.”

Also, William B. May’s operations in Brooklyn, which include two offices, may soon become part of Brown Harris Stevens.

Brown Harris Stevens’ parent company, Terra Holdings, purchased former William B. May president Peter Marra’s stake in the company in April. That’s a 50 percent share of the company’s Brooklyn operations and a 20 percent share of William B. May’s operations in Manhattan.

“The rumor is William B. May will become Brown Harris Stevens in Brooklyn,” said Melinda Magnett, president of the Corcoran Group in Brooklyn.

Brown Harris Stevens representatives did not return calls for comment.

In Halstead’s purchase of William S. Ross, the buyer gets a company that handles sales and rentals in both the residential and commercial markets, and also works closely with developers. Ross, a Brooklyn native, started the firm nine years ago.

The deal with Halstead had been in the works for more than a year, he said. “We knew it was inevitable that we would probably do a deal with a Manhattan firm,” said Ross. “In the end it came together very quickly, and we were very anxious to go with Halstead.”

Ross said the firm is planning to open offices in Park Slope, Williamsburg and Fort Greene “sooner rather than later.” Bay Ridge is also a possibility, he said.

“Check back in a year and we can talk about the next round of offices,” he said.

Halstead president Diane Ramirez sounded a bit more cautious in her assessment.

“To think Brooklyn is just one neighborhood [Brooklyn Heights] is silly,” she said. “We’ll do it thoughtfully. We’re not going to have three new offices in three months.”

Ramirez she expects to see a lot more expansion by Manhattan firms to Brooklyn, either by acquiring companies or by creating referral affiliations.

“Because Manhattan has become such a one-neighborhood place, people are no longer carving out small sections where they want to live as much as before,” she said. “Brooklyn now gives a choice to people.” It’s also the preferred destination for buyers who can’t afford the new, uniformly expensive Manhattan, she said.

There may also be more brokers in Manhattan selling in Brooklyn. Only a small percentage of Manhattan brokers currently are “willing to try to learn Brooklyn well enough to sell there effectively. However, that group is growing,” Ramirez said.

Magnett of Corcoran, which entered the Brooklyn market in 1998, said she was not disturbed about Manhattan competitors coming to Brooklyn. Corcoran added another office in Brooklyn last month when the company acquired Citi Habitats and its affiliate SoLOFTS. SoLOFTS opened an office in Brooklyn Heights only a few weeks prior to the deal, and the location will now become a Corcoran office.

“We’re welcoming it,” Magnett said of the Manhattan firms. In particular, she said, Manhattan firms will bring a Manhattan way of selling property.

The majority of firms in Brooklyn are reluctant to co-broker, said Magnett, unlike in Manhattan, where under the Real Estate Board of New York’s 72-hour rule listings must be shared after that time period expires.

The changes may be slow, however.

Ross said he didn’t expect any “seminal changes immediately” in how the company handles listings, though he said, “I think sooner rather than later it will be closer to the Manhattan model.” Ramirez said she thinks there will be changes, but “not overnight.”

Ross also said access to technology used by Halstead will be a boon for the Brooklyn operation.

Changes in the marketplace could come about even more quickly when Douglas Elliman opens up in the borough.

CEO Herman would only say that her company “has a master plan in Brooklyn,” and included Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill in a list of areas that look promising.

In Among the Mansions of Eden, last year’s dishy book on Beverly Hills, author David Weddle quotes a real estate agent on how they get their best listings. “The Four D’s: Death, Divorce, Destitution or Disease – that’s how good properties come on the market,” the agent says.

If dealing with death and divorce are mainstays in the residential real estate business (we’ll leave destitution and disease aside for now), brokers say the ways they deal with these emotionally sensitive situations differ widely.

Most brokers say it is much easier to sell an apartment whose previous occupant has died, because they do not have to walk the emotional tightrope that often exists when dealing with a couple whose marriage is ending, forcing them to split what usually is their biggest asset.

Most often in cases of death, heirs want to sell the property, pay the estate taxes and move on with their lives, says Michele Kleier, president of Gumley Haft Kleier.

If the inheritor has plenty of liquid assets, they have time to get as much money for the property as they can, and sales are not rushed.

“Almost all estates are represented by an attorney,” said Stephen Kotler, executive vice president at Douglas Elliman. “They are going to get the highest and best price they can get, unless it was occupied by the same person for 50 years. In some cases if there is cachet to the name of the person that lived there, it may sell for more.”

Occasionally heirs may need to sell quickly to pay the estate taxes, and the situation is more rushed. “We’ve had situations where property was sold off after the spouse died either to cash out or to pay the estate taxes,” said Kotler.

Difficult situations also arise, said Kleier, in the cases of family disputes or when a property is going to a charity.

“Sometimes with a death it can get difficult if the money is going to several heirs who are fighting over money and one doesn’t have money,” says Kleier. “Or one of the heirs may have an emotional attachment and feels it’s worth more than it is.”

“But the most difficult negotiating is when the estate is not going to heirs, but to a charity,” adds Kleier, because they are usually in a position to try and get every last dollar they can.

Brokers must also manage the expectations of a surviving spouse.

“The surviving spouse may not have lived anywhere else for many years and is moving to a much smaller space,” said Kotler. “You have to manage the expectations for what they are going to get now, and I think it’s up to the broker to do that.”

As far as how properties fare on the sales market, properties that have fallen into disrepair during the later stages of the owner’s life and require renovation “frequently move a little more slowly,” said Frederick Peters, president of Warburg Realty Partnership.

For the broker trying to sell a property after a death, apartments “are usually empty, so there is easy access,” he said. “It’s much easier to show it and sell it, as opposed to divorce when it’s difficult to get in.”

Sales spurred by a divorce can be a much more difficult situation to handle, because one side usually has more at stake than the other, especially depending on how contentious the divorce is, said Kotler.

“Some couples are upfront as you walk through, and with others you become aware that there is a divorce or separation situation,” he said. “Even if it is messy and they are not speaking, you still have to make everybody feel very equal.”

“Sometimes they are trying to shield the children as much as possible, so you may be showing the property during school hours when the kids aren’t there,” he added.

Divorces also often create co-exclusive situations, said Peters. “When the property has to be sold and the spouses hate each other, it’s almost certain that each spouse wants a broker and it ends up as co-exclusives,” he said. “The obligation of the co-exclusive brokers is to be on the same page in the advice they are giving and make sure that the apartment isn’t just another weapon in the battle.”

Overall, the percentage of deals generated by death and divorce sales is very small and not a statistic generally tracked by brokers.

“People pay what they are prepared to pay – more if they are excited or less if they feel they are being gouged,” said Peters. “You don’t necessarily know it’s a divorce unless it becomes clear during negotiating.”

“With estate sales it’s usually pretty clear,” added Kleier. “They have the look and the smell and the feel of an estate.”

Kotler said most of his estate sales come to him as a result of referrals. “Business comes through past relationships and attorneys,” he said. “In one recent case I knew the attorney in a relationship that goes back about 10 years, so he came to me with the business.”

The stereotypical example of brokers handing out business cards at funerals is practiced by very few, Peters said.

“It’s a very small percentage of brokers who are insensitive to the grief of family members,” Peters said. “Most are not aggressive enough because they are worried about impinging on the family member.”

“Instead, they let a week go by and write a letter expressing sympathy and offering services to value the apartment or any other way in which to be of help,” he said.

But Kleier came across a situation recently in which the day after a husband’s obituary appeared in the newspaper, the wife got a package from a broker which used information from her husband’s life (he was a fairly well-known person) worded as if the deceased owner was a personal acquaintance, exhorting her to sell because the financial obligation would be too much for someone living alone.

“She was so furious that she wanted to sue the company,” said Kleier.

So how long is a decent interval to wait? Wait too long and you lose the listing, make contact too soon and you look like a vulture.

“If I get a listing, it’s because I know the attorney, by referral or knowing someone from the family,” said Kleier. “In a recent estate sale, I happened to know the attorney, and I was interviewed and they chose me. I have never gotten one by writing a letter. That’s beyond what I am willing to do.”

Queens buy of 100-agent Goldmark Realty expands company s presence in borough [more]

Projects nearing completion, or with sales or leasing about to begin.

Chelsea
Chelsea Club
West 19th Street (10th Avenue)
12-story, 42-unit condo building now under construction on former parking lot near Tenth Avenue. Sales will begin late this summer, with occupancy expected in the summer of 2005. Apartments will range in size from 700 to 1,600 square feet, and prices will range from $400,000 to $1.8 million. The project is being developed by Moe-Joe Developers. The exterior of glass and precast stone was designed by Karl Fischer Architect; the interiors were designed by Andres Escobar & Associates.

Downtown Brooklyn
The Toy Factory Lofts
176 Johnson Street 56 loft units in former Tudor Games Factory expected to go for sale starting this summer. Apartments vary in size from 600 square feet to 1,100 square feet, with 11- foot ceilings and 8-foot wall-to-wall windows. Prices are expected to start just above $200,000. Many of the units have views of the Williamsburg Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, and Brooklyn and Manhattan skylines. Units include laundry rooms with washer/dryer hook-ups, walk-in closets, above-door storage space, hardwood floors, and high-speed Internet and cable access. The building will also have a gym on the ground floor, a common roof deck and underground resident parking. Winchester Realty LLC is the developer and Scarano & Associates Architects designed the project. Contact: The Developers Group, 718-222-1545.

Financial District Liberty Plaza 10 Liberty Street
45-floor, 287-unit building has opened for leasing. This is the first large new luxury residential building to be built in the heart of the Financial District in over 25 years, according to developer Glenwood Management. One- and two-bedroom apartments with duplexes and penthouses available, some with terraces. Rental prices begin at $2,375 for a one-bedroom and range up to $7,295 for a two-bedroom penthouse with terrace. Each apartment has 9-foot ceilings with 8-foot doors, and many have views of the South Street Seaport and the East River. The building has a 24-hour doorman, and other features include a fitness center with saunas, a 50-foot, two-lane exercise swimming pool with sun terrace and children& 39;s playroom. An attended 24-hour indoor garage is also available. Contact: Glenwood rental office, 212-535-0500.

SALES REPORTS:

Chelsea The Paradigm Building 146-148 West 22nd Street
Contains 12 full-floor loft residences, ranging from 1,540 square feet to 2,579 square feet. Prices range from $1.37 million to $2.27 million. All but two of the units have been sold – a top floor penthouse with a private rooftop terrace as well as balconies and a 10th-floor unit with terraces and balconies. Both units have unobstructed views of the Empire State Building. Contact: Alchemy Properties director of sales, 212-732-0372.

Financial District The Crest 63 Wall Street
The building had leased 130 units in the first six weeks since its April opening, and residents will begin moving in this month. Overall, 190 units were released in the first phase of leasing, and the remaining floors, several of which have private terraces, will be released in July and August. The former headquarters for bankers Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. has a total of 476 units. Metro Loft Management is the developer of the project. Contact: Citi Habitats Marketing Group, or visit crestnyc.com.

NoHo 57 Bond Street
Ten loft-style apartments, ranging in size from 1,470 square feet to 2,512 square feet, have sold out. The units were priced from $1.335 million to $1.97 million. Apartments feature 11-foot ceilings, marble living rooms with two glass walls, and private balcony or terrace. The building is the first new residential condo development in the Bowery area in more than 50 years, according to developer Alchemy Properties. Meltzer/Mandl Architects were the architects for the project. Contact: Alchemy Properties director of sales, 212-732-0372.

Midtown East The Beekman Regent 351 East 51st Street
Occupancy first began in spring 2002, but the building is now putting 10 residences on the market for the first time. The finished apartments range from 1,824 square feet to 3,170 square feet with 14-foot ceilings and 10-foot high windows. Prices range from $2.9 million to $6.6 million. The prewar building has 64 residences, housed in the restored façde of a former turn-of-the-century schoolhouse on First Avenue. The building has doorman and concierge service, a library/drawing room, an onsite garage, a fitness center, residents’ lounge and other amenities. Contact: thebeekmanregent.com

OTHER NEWS:

Lower East Side 115 Allen Street
The architectural team of Serge Becker and Derek Sanders was selected to design the loft building. The existing building will be renovated and converted into four full- floor condominiums, including a two-story penthouse addition cloaked in aluminum. The units will range from 1,600 to 2,000 square feet, and the penthouse will be 2,600 square feet with a 1,400-square-foot private roof deck. Developer Seth Tapper chose William B. May to market the apartments.

Forest Hills 71st Road and Queens Boulevard
Architect Ismael Leyva, whose projects include the residential condominiums at the Time Warner Center, has designed a new 21-story building that will soon begin construction in an area of Queens that has not seen a notable luxury residential project in over 10 years, according to developer Cord Meyer. The 95 condominium apartments will be in a residential tower as part of a mixed-use project, and units will range from one to three bedrooms, 725 to 1,750 square feet. The tower will include a 24-hour doorman, fitness facility, roof terrace and other amenities. Below the tower will be 8,000 square feet of commercial space. Construction is expected to be completed in fall 2005.

FROM JUNE 2004 ISSUE:

Dumbo
70 Washington St. and 35 York St.
Two conjoined buildings topped by a clock that occupy an entire block in Dumbo will begin to be converted into luxury apartments in July by Two Trees Management. The building currently houses a mix of industrial tenants, whose leases all expire this year.

Dumbo
38 Water Street
Two Trees Management plans to build a 16-story apartment building on the site of the St. Ann’s Warehouse, a performing arts center near the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. No timetable for construction has been released.

HARLEM
65-71 East 130th Street
Seven-story, 25-unit market rate apartment building planned between Madison and Park Avenues. The project is being built on four contiguous vacant lots by East Harlem Development Corp. Construction will begin this spring.

HARLEM
2000 Fifth Avenue
Nine-story co-op with 23 units planned for the corner of Fifth Avenue and 124th Street, across from Marcus Garvey Park. The building will also include a retail component, sublevel parking for 32 cars and a community facility. Upside Ventures represented both the owners and developers of the site. Construction will begin this spring.

HARLEM
The Clayton
257 West 117th Street
Seven-story townhouse built in 1890s being converted to 16 apartments. Units will be two-bedroom, two-bathroom and range from 2,200 to 2,800 square feet. Prices start at $1.1 million. Bridge Capital Corporation is the building owner. Project to be completed by late August. Contact: Lawrence Comroe and Tony Oakley, Corcoran, 212-875-2942.

LONG ISLAND CITY
Two condominium towers slated for the site of the East River Tennis Club just south of the Queensboro Bridge. The waterfront towers will each be 28 stories, and will have a total of 540 one- to three-bedroom apartments. Prices have not been set. The buildings are part of a larger plan by Vernon Realty of New Jersey to build 910 residences, which will also include townhouses, lofts and rentals, in six buildings on six acres. There also will be a park, a riverfront promenade and gardens as well as 20,000 square feet of retail space. Construction on the two towers is set to begin in August. Contact: Andrew Gerringer, Douglas Elliman Development Marketing Group, 212-702-4060.

MIDTOWN
112 Central Park South
208-room, 27-floor former InterContinental hotel to be converted to 65 co-op units, each with one to three bedrooms and 1,000 to 2,365 square feet of space. Prices haven’t been set, but are expected to range from $1 million to $5 million. Though a co-op (because the developer rents the land under the building), owners will not need board approval to sell or sublet their units. Anbau Enterprises is the developer; Costas Kondylis & Partners is the renovation architect. Sales are expected to start by the end of the year and the project is expected to be finished in 15 months. Contact: Anbau Enterprises, 212-938-0090.

MIDTOWN EAST
Park Avenue Place
60 East 55th Street
New 45-story condo development rising between Park and Madison Avenues that will offer 76 units featuring a variety of studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom layouts. Apartments will range from 446 to 2,950 square feet. The building will also include the 23,000-square-foot “Core Club” in its first five floors, a private club open to building residents. It will include a new restaurant and bar by chef Tom Colicchio of Craft, as well as a library, lounge, screening room and meeting rooms. There will also be a spa and fitness studio, and changing facilities with butler service. The project is being developed by Davis/RFR. Architects Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates designed the tower, which features a glass exterior, and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP served as interior architects for the project. The Marketing Directors are the property’s sales and marketing agent. Sales are already underway and the project is slated for occupancy in December. Contact: Park Avenue Place sales center, 212-813-9055.

SOUTH STREET SEAPORT
233 Front Street
11-story, 96-unit rental building, primarily one- and two- bedrooms, with a few studios and three-bedrooms. Rents are expected to range from $2,100 to $3,000 for a one bedroom. In addition to top amenities, some apartments have views of the Brooklyn Bridge and access to backyard gardens. Sciame Development and Construction Co. is the general contractor. Apartments will go on the market this fall.

WALL STREET
The Crest
63 Wall Street
A 37-story, 476-unit rental building converted from the former home of Brown Brothers Harriman. Studios will rent for $1,770. Apartments range from 425 to 2,000 square feet. The 1929 neoclassical-style building will also feature a “Great Room” with billiards area, baby grand piano, library, screening room, common sundeck, and ATM and DVD rental services. Developed by Metro Loft Management. Set to open in June. Contact: crestnyc.com

SALES UPDATES:
GREENWICH VILLAGE
One Morton Square
All six of the townhouse residences at Morton Square, a development by JD Carlisle Development Corp. were sold as of last month. The last townhouse achieved a price of $4.25 million. The townhouses are three stories, with three to four bedrooms, and four-and-a-half-baths. The 147 lofts, townhouses and family size classic residences in Morton Square will be completed and available for occupancy this summer. Contact: mortonsquare.com.

UPPER EAST SIDE
The Metropolitan
181 East 90th Street
More than 70 percent of the condos have been sold in the first 25 weeks since the sales office opened its doors, according to developer Sherwood Properties. Buyers had signed over $100 million in sales contracts since sales commenced on Sept. 15. The Philip Johnson-designed building features 94 famliy- sized homes. Prices range from $850,000 to $7.95 million for the 3,550-square-foot terraced penthouse. Contact: Michelle Conte, Brown Harris Stevens, 212-906-9393.

GREENWICH VILLAGE
505 Greenwich Street
More than 80 percent of the units have been sold at the 14-story condo building with 104 units following the beginning of sales in January. The building, which is to be completed this fall, has 25 three-bedroom apartments, 42 two-bedroom units and 37 one-bedroom apartments, with sizes ranging from 722 to 2,400 square feet. Contact: 505 Greenwich Street Presentation Center, 212-505-9600, or visit 505greenwich.com.

UPPER EAST SIDE
The Seville
300 East 77th Street
Nearly 85 percent of the residences have been sold at the 32-story tower designed by architect Robert A.M. Stern. The majority of the 84 residences are two-bedroom apartments, with the remaining mix comprised of one- and three-bedrooms, and two full-floor penthouses. Prices of the available homes start at $2.1 million for two-bedrooms and $2.975 million for three-bedroom residences. The penthouses are priced at $8.2 and $9 million. The building is already completed, but several homes were recently released for purchase. Contact: The Marketing Directors, 212-826-8822.

FROM MAY 2004 ISSUE:

HARLEM
Strivers Gardens
300 West 135th Street
Two towers, one 12-stories tall and one seven stories, with 170 condominium apartments. Apartments are for sale by lottery, with the minimum household income required at $48,000, and the maximum at $157,000. Preference for half the apartments is to be given to applicants living within Community Board 10. Apartments range from a 673 square foot one-bedroom for $143,000 to a 1,182 square foot three-bedroom penthouse with rooftop terrace for $529,000. Applications can only be mailed and must be postmarked from April 21 to June 21. The project is expected to be completed by January. Contact: striversgardens.com.

GRAMERCY HILL
120 East 29th Street
Restoration of five 1880 s era contiguous brownstones. Project includes adding two and a half stories to the five-story buildings, which will have a total of 25 one-to-four bedroom condominiums, priced from $675,000 to $2.4 million and ranging in size from 1,000 square feet to 2,659 square feet. Features will include oversized windows, high ceilings, and new oak floors with walnut inlay trim. The six ground-floor duplexes will have private gardens while 11 of the residences will offer either a private terrace or balcony. The developer is Alchemy Properties and Hustvedt Cutler Architects was retained for the project, which is expected to be completed by December.

MADISON SQUARE PARK
50 Madison Avenue
Combines a restored 1898 five-story mansion with a new eight-story tower on top, overlooking Madison Square Park. Contains eight 3-bedroom, 3.5 bath residences priced from $2.65 million and a duplex penthouse priced at $5 million. The penthouse has 3,500 square feet of space and two terraces that together comprise 1,000 square feet. Kitchens will offer cherry cabinets, granite countertops, Sub-Zero refrigerators and freezers, Viking and Bosch appliances and kitchen islands with wine coolers. Samson Management LLC is the developer. Sales began last month, and occupancy is slated for spring 2005. Contact: Halstead Property and senior vice president, Louise Phillips Forbes, 212-381-3329.

UPPER EAST SIDE
205 East 59th Street
27-floor condo building across the street from Bloomingdale s. There will be 62 one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments varying from 1,113 to 1,552 square feet, ranging in price from $1.47 million to $3 million. There will also be a 2,702 square foot penthouse, not yet for sale. Each apartment is to have a gas-burning fireplace and at least one balcony, and two apartments on each floor are to have solariums. Some apartment will have living rooms with 20-foot ceilings. The building also features a park for dogs as part of an outdoor area on the fifth floor. Construction began last March and is expected to be completed early next year. Contact: The Sunshine Group, 212-750-0500.
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UPPER WEST SIDE
The Hopkins
172 West 79th Street
Pre-war apartment building being converted from rental to condominium ownership. The 20-story building, which was constructed in 1929 and has been under the same family ownership for over 60 years, will be bringing a total of 99 apartments to market. Apartments will include 17 three-room and 37 four-room apartments, all potentially convertible to two-bedroom residences. There will also be 35 two-bedroom/two bath units as well as 10 large “irregular” apartments containing six or more rooms. Apartments range in size from 800 square feet to over 2,000 square feet. Opening prices are expected to range from $550,000 to more than $2.5 million. As part of a year-long, $3 million renovation and capital improvement program, the building will soon feature two new elevators, new windows, a new boiler, a newly furnished and decorated lobby, new corridors and a new security system. Apartments will feature new kitchens, bathrooms and washer/dryers in every unit. Sales are expected to begin later this spring. Contact: Jud Ebersman, Walter & Samuels Inc., (212) 696-7128.
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UPPER WEST SIDE
West 58
426 West 58th Street
A century-old mid-rise building on top of which six modern penthouse floors are being built. The condominium features 16 two and three bedroom units. Nine of the units are already in contract for prices ranging from $1.4 million to $3.3 million. The remaining units are currently priced from $1.4 million for two-bedroom residences to $5 million for the penthouses. Prices on the units have been raised four separate times since going on sale. The developer is Elad Properties. Occupancy is scheduled for early next year. Contact: Iva Spitzer, Douglas Elliman, 212-247-5858.
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FROM APRIL 2004 ISSUE:
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GREENWICH VILLAGE
505 Greenwich Street
A 14-story condo building with 104 units. Building will contain 25 three-bedroom, 42 two-bedroom, and 37 one-bedroom apartments. Prices range from $825,000 to $3.5 million. Individual units have large living rooms with mahogany flooring, and kitchens feature top appliances including wine refrigerators. The building includes a 24/7 concierge, resident manager, private courtyard, fitness center and pet spa. The project is being developed by Metropolitan Housing Partners and Apollo Real Estate. Occupancy is scheduled to begin this autumn. Contact: 505 Greenwich Street Presentation Center, 212-505-9600, or visit 505greenwich.com.
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HARLEM
Rosa Parks Condominiums
163 St. Nicholas Avenue (at 118th Street)
A six-story, 64-unit condo building with one, two and three-bedroom units.
Prices range from $195,000 to $260,000 for a one bedroom, $500,000 to $640,000 for a two bedroom, and $600,000 to $825,000 for three-bedroom penthouses. Building features 24-hour concierge, video security, gym, rooftop garden, and wiring for high-speed Internet. Taxes are $7 to $25 annually, and building features low common charges, including $166 to $200 for a one-bedroom apartment. Developed by Artimus Construction. Set to open in April. Contact: Douglas Elliman Development Marketing Group, 212-702-4060, or visit rosaparkscondos.com.
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LOWER MANHATTAN
15 Broad Street.
Conversion of former J.P. Morgan building to 250 condos. Project is being developed by LB Lev Leviev/Boymelgreen. Philippe Starke is also working on the project, his first residential building in New York. The building will include basketball courts, bowling alley and a pool. Scheduled to open in May. Contact: The Sunshine Group, 212-750-0500.
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LOWER MANHATTAN
63 Wall Street
Conversion of former Brown Brothers Harriman headquarters to 476 rentals, with leasing to begin this month. Monthly rents for studio to two-bedroom apartments will be $1,700 to $3,600. The project is being developed by Nathan Berman and Ronny Bruckner.
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MIDTOWN
425 Fifth Avenue (at 38th Street)
A 67-floor building by architect Michael Graves with 176 condos. Includes a 24-hour doorman. Gym (with sauna, steam room and lap pool) available. Office space on the first six floors of the building. Studios are priced from $420,000 to $730,000, one bedrooms from $525,000 to $1.4 million, two bedrooms from $750,000 to $2.5 million, and three bedrooms start at $2.9 million. A 3,706 square foot duplex penthouse is on the market for $10.5 million. About 80 percent of the building was already sold as of last month. The building will officially open in June. Contact: The Marketing Directors, 212-683-3331.
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TRIBECA
The Grabler
44 Laight Street
Conversion of former warehouse to 18 units ranging in size from 1,580 to more than 4,500 square feet. Apartments in the lower floors are unfinished; eight apartments on the top three floors are fully finished, most also have 1,500 square foot terraces. Prices range from $1.295 million to $2.95 million. 14 parking spaces are also for sale for $169,000 apiece. The building is already 50 percent sold and will open this summer. Contact: Corcoran Group Marketing, 212-343-5400.
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UPPER EAST SIDE
47 East 91st Street.
Eight-story condominium building. Seven apartments, each full-floor, will be 4,100 square feet, while the other, a duplex penthouse, will be 5,800 square feet plus a wrap-around garden. Prices to range from $5 to $15 million. Occupancy expected around May. Stribling Marketing Associates is marketing the building. Contact: Sales office at 212-828-7033, or visit 47east91.com.
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WILLIAMSBURG
170 Broadway
Newly built seven-story condominium with a total of 12 two-bedroom apartments. Prices range from $400,000 to $525,000. All residences have a balcony or terrace. Units feature solid oak strip flooring, recessed lighting, central heat and air conditioning, a stacked washer/dryer, fully equipped kitchen with solid birch wood cabinets, and bathrooms with marble floors and walls. Sales are underway, and occupancy is expected in the late spring. Contact: Helene Luchnick, Douglas Elliman, 212-965-6008.
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FROM MARCH 2004 ISSUE:
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DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN
Smith, Schermerhorn, State and Hoyt Streets
A 500,000 square foot mixed-use project will begin on a block currently vacant except for five National Register brownstones. The project, a joint venture of Time Equities Inc. and Hamlin Ventures, will include single-family townhouses on State Street, condominium lofts and mews on Hoyt Street, and rental apartments on Smith Street. Schermerhorn Street will be the focus for the project s retail space. Construction will begin on the townhouses in late spring. Contact: Time Equities, 212-206-6000.
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GREENPOINT
82-88 Green Street
New 16-unit condo building with two bedrooms ranging from 900 square feet to 1,600 square feet. Prices range from $425,000 to $550,000. The building, a project by developer Josh Guberman, is nearly 50 percent sold out. Another project, the Russell Court Condominiums at 190 Green Street, includes 26 units in a cluster of five buildings, with sales beginning a month ago. Contact: N/A
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NORTHERN MANHATTAN
400 Lenox Avenue (at 129th Street)
The first luxury, doorman, non-subsidized housing in the immediate area in the past 75 years was given the green light by the city last month to begin construction. The 12-story building will include 92 units covering 130,000 square feet. There will also be 11,000 square feet of commercial space. Contact: N/A
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SOHO
73 Wooster Street
A four-story building that previously housed a cardboard box manufacturer is being converted into a condominium with six lofts. Units are selling for $4.25 million to $6.75 million, and include four 4,300 square foot apartments and two 5,000 square foot penthouses. Sales began early last month. Contact: Douglas Elliman Development Marketing Group, 212-702-4060.
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SOHO
60 Spring Street
39 apartments in the 1923 Cass Gilbert building range from one to three bedrooms, from 1,100 square feet to 2,200 square feet. A penthouse apartment features a large terrace and a fireplace and measures 2,750 square feet. Prices range from $1.48 million to more than $7 million. The building, which is being developed by Boymelgreen Developers, was 75 percent sold as of January. Occupancy is scheduled for March. Contact: The Sunshine Group, 212-750-0500.
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TRIBECA
114 and 116 Hudson Street
$14 million residential project being developed by actor Robert DeNiro in conjunction with with AFC Realty Capital. The project will join an existing five-story brick building at 116 Hudson Street with a new seven-story glass structure that will be built on a lot at 114 Hudson Street. The project will include five loft condominiums, including a duplex penthouse. Four apartments will be 2,000 square feet and cost $2 million, and the penthouse will be 3,000 feet at cost $3.5 million. Sales are set to begin in March. Contact: Stribling Marketing Associates, 212-941-8420.
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TRIBECA
The River Lofts
92 Laight and 424 Washington Streets
The project consists of two buildings, one new and one old. 92 Laight is a new brick tower with 38 units and 424 Washington is a converted industrial building with 30 lofts. Units range from one to four bedroom apartments (1,100 to 3,900 square feet), priced from $1.125 million to $8.55 million. The project, by Boymelgreen Developers, will be ready for occupancy in 2005. Contact: The Sunshine Group, 212-750-0500.
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UPPER WEST SIDE
43 West 64 Street
Features 32 open, loft-style residences ranging from 1,600 to 6,151 square feet, listed from $1.5 to $10.2 million. Over ninety percent of the residences have been sold, including three of the four penthouses. There have been 20 units totaling approximately $70 million sold within the last four months, including the three most expensive properties in the building, according to the Athena Group. O Neal s Restaurant, by restaurateur Michael O Neal, opened on the ground floor of the building at the end of the year. Contact: The Athena Group, 212-459-0200, or visit 43west64.com.
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UPPER WEST SIDE
44 West 63rd Street (Empire Hotel)
Financing was recently arranged for a project to convert the 373-key Empire Hotel to 125 luxury condominium units. The 14-story, W-shaped building on Broadway will include more than 200,000 square feet of apartments and 25,000 square feet of retail space. Contact: N/A
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UPPER WEST SIDE
The Opus
2770 Broadway (at 107th Street)
Plans were unveiled last month for a 64-unit condominium building to be developed by The Clarett Group at the site of the former Olympia Theatre previously owned by Cablevision Systems. The homes at the $75 million project will take their inspiration from the “Classic 6″ and “Classic 7″ apartments constructed in the area at the turn-of-the-century, the developers said, and the building will also feature 7,500 square feet of retail space on the ground floor. Apartments range from 1,200 to 2,200 square feet, with two to five bedrooms. Prices range from $900,000 to $3 million and opening is set for January 2005. A sales office has already opened a block north of the building, and nine contracts were out on the condos as of early last month. Contact: The Clarett Group, 212-399-2400 or visit clarett.com.
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FROM FEBRUARY 2004 ISSUE:
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COBBLE HILL
The Arches at Cobble Hill.
57 units in new development. Units range from one to four bedrooms (875 to 3,000 square feet). Prices range from $535,000 to $1.8 million. Set to open around this fall. Contact: www.thearchesatcobblehill.com.
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GREENWICH VILLAGE
The Greenwich Street Project
497 Greenwich Street
Six-story condominium with 22 units in former warehouse building. Prices range from $1.2 to $7 million. Units range from two to four bedrooms (1,600 to 3,500 square feet). Approximately 65 percent of the units are still for sale, mostly between $2 and $3 million. Set to open in late February or early March. Contact: Cantor-Pecorella, 212-925-3333
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GREENWICH VILLAGE
One Morton Square.
Town houses, lofts, rental apartments and 147 condominium units. Two-bedroom, 2.5-bath condo units are priced at $1.3 million. Three-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bath town houses with home offices, private elevators and back gardens start at $3.75 million. Scheduled to be ready for occupancy this spring. Contact: 212-366-1515 or visit www.mortonsquare.com.
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LOWER EAST SIDE
7 Essex Street
11-story condominium with 16 units. Units range from 1,584 to 3,690 square feet. Prices range from $825,000 to $2.275 million. Four units were still available as of last month, ranging in price from $1.9 to $2.6 million. Contact: 7 Essex Street, LLC, 212-925-9991.
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SOHO
Soho 25
25 West Houston Street
Nine-story condominium with 32 one and two-bedroom lofts. Prices start at $600,000 and go up to $4.5 million. The building, unusual for SoHo, is being sold to non-artists. All but one of the residences had been sold as of December. Set to open this spring. Contact: The Marketing Directors, 212-368-2500, or visit www.soho25lofts.com.
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WILLIAMSBURG
The Gretsch Building
60 Broadway
10 story condominium with 130 apartments. Units range from studio to three bedrooms (620 to 2,500 square feet). Prices range from $309,000 to $1.27 million (and higher for two and three bedroom penthouses). Approximately 34 units in the building remain unsold. Set to open this fall. Contact: 1-888-GRETSCH.

 
FROM JANUARY 2004 ISSUE:
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CHELSEA
The Aston
The 38-floor rental tower on the Avenue of the Americas between 27th and 28th Streets was scheduled for completion by the end of 2003. The building includes 269 units is being developed by the Manhattan-based Adell Corporation.
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GRAMERCY PARK AREA
49 East 21st Street
Former United Federation of Teachers office building converted to a condo with 43 units by developer Elad Properties of Fort Lee, NJ. The 12-story building features “loftlike” apartments, which range from $910,000 to $2.6 million. The sales office opened on the ground floor of the building in November.
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HELL S KITCHEN
Loft 55
419 West 55th Street
A new residential sales building that was scheduled to open in mid-November. All lofts in this 24-unit, seven-story co-op building have 10- to 12-foot ceilings. Studios start at $395,000, one-bedrooms at $425,000, and two-bedrooms at $475,000. The penthouse, a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment with a separate studio, gas fireplace, and skylight, and 1,000 square feet of outside private terrace will sell for $1,395,000. Contact: Developer Anbau Enterprises Inc., 212-741-1325.
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TRIBECA
48 Laight Street
Six-story condo building with nine apartments. The units range from 1,400 to 1,900 square feet and from one to three bedrooms.. There will also be a 2,300-square-foot penthouse. Preconstruction prices are to be $975,000 to $1.6 million for the apartments and $3 million for the penthouse. Sales begin Jan. 5. Contact. Citi Habitats, 212-685-7777.
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UPPER WEST SIDE
455 Central Park West
The 26-story condo tower between 105th and 106th Streets includes 53 apartments, 44 of which went on the market in December at prices of $1.35 million to $4.5 million. Units feature large rooms, eat-in kitchens, formal dining rooms, high ceilings, granite countertops, marble bathrooms with showers and tubs, and a lap pool in the building and concierge services. In addition, a French Renaissance chateau at the front of the property, which has sat vacant for decades, is also being renovated, and will be finished at a later date. Each of the 17 units in the chateau are expected to sell for between $3.5 and $7.5 million. Contact: The Marketing Directors, 212-665-5100, or visit www.455cpw.com.
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Projects nearing completion, or with sales or leasing about to begin.

Chelsea
Chelsea Club
West 19th Street (10th Avenue)
12-story, 42-unit condo building now under construction on former parking lot near Tenth Avenue. Sales will begin late this summer, with occupancy expected in the summer of 2005. Apartments will range in size from 700 to 1,600 square feet, and prices will range from $400,000 to $1.8 million. The project is being developed by Moe-Joe Developers. The exterior of glass and precast stone was designed by Karl Fischer Architect; the interiors were designed by Andres Escobar & Associates.

Downtown Brooklyn
The Toy Factory Lofts
176 Johnson Street 56 loft units in former Tudor Games Factory expected to go for sale starting this summer. Apartments vary in size from 600 square feet to 1,100 square feet, with 11- foot ceilings and 8-foot wall-to-wall windows. Prices are expected to start just above $200,000. Many of the units have views of the Williamsburg Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, and Brooklyn and Manhattan skylines. Units include laundry rooms with washer/dryer hook-ups, walk-in closets, above-door storage space, hardwood floors, and high-speed Internet and cable access. The building will also have a gym on the ground floor, a common roof deck and underground resident parking. Winchester Realty LLC is the developer and Scarano & Associates Architects designed the project. Contact: The Developers Group, 718-222-1545.

Financial District Liberty Plaza 10 Liberty Street
45-floor, 287-unit building has opened for leasing. This is the first large new luxury residential building to be built in the heart of the Financial District in over 25 years, according to developer Glenwood Management. One- and two-bedroom apartments with duplexes and penthouses available, some with terraces. Rental prices begin at $2,375 for a one-bedroom and range up to $7,295 for a two-bedroom penthouse with terrace. Each apartment has 9-foot ceilings with 8-foot doors, and many have views of the South Street Seaport and the East River. The building has a 24-hour doorman, and other features include a fitness center with saunas, a 50-foot, two-lane exercise swimming pool with sun terrace and children& 39;s playroom. An attended 24-hour indoor garage is also available. Contact: Glenwood rental office, 212-535-0500.

SALES REPORTS:

Chelsea The Paradigm Building 146-148 West 22nd Street
Contains 12 full-floor loft residences, ranging from 1,540 square feet to 2,579 square feet. Prices range from $1.37 million to $2.27 million. All but two of the units have been sold – a top floor penthouse with a private rooftop terrace as well as balconies and a 10th-floor unit with terraces and balconies. Both units have unobstructed views of the Empire State Building. Contact: Alchemy Properties director of sales, 212-732-0372.

Financial District The Crest 63 Wall Street
The building had leased 130 units in the first six weeks since its April opening, and residents will begin moving in this month. Overall, 190 units were released in the first phase of leasing, and the remaining floors, several of which have private terraces, will be released in July and August. The former headquarters for bankers Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. has a total of 476 units. Metro Loft Management is the developer of the project. Contact: Citi Habitats Marketing Group, or visit crestnyc.com.

NoHo 57 Bond Street
Ten loft-style apartments, ranging in size from 1,470 square feet to 2,512 square feet, have sold out. The units were priced from $1.335 million to $1.97 million. Apartments feature 11-foot ceilings, marble living rooms with two glass walls, and private balcony or terrace. The building is the first new residential condo development in the Bowery area in more than 50 years, according to developer Alchemy Properties. Meltzer/Mandl Architects were the architects for the project. Contact: Alchemy Properties director of sales, 212-732-0372.

Midtown East The Beekman Regent 351 East 51st Street
Occupancy first began in spring 2002, but the building is now putting 10 residences on the market for the first time. The finished apartments range from 1,824 square feet to 3,170 square feet with 14-foot ceilings and 10-foot high windows. Prices range from $2.9 million to $6.6 million. The prewar building has 64 residences, housed in the restored façde of a former turn-of-the-century schoolhouse on First Avenue. The building has doorman and concierge service, a library/drawing room, an onsite garage, a fitness center, residents’ lounge and other amenities. Contact: thebeekmanregent.com

OTHER NEWS:

Lower East Side 115 Allen Street
The architectural team of Serge Becker and Derek Sanders was selected to design the loft building. The existing building will be renovated and converted into four full- floor condominiums, including a two-story penthouse addition cloaked in aluminum. The units will range from 1,600 to 2,000 square feet, and the penthouse will be 2,600 square feet with a 1,400-square-foot private roof deck. Developer Seth Tapper chose William B. May to market the apartments.

Forest Hills 71st Road and Queens Boulevard
Architect Ismael Leyva, whose projects include the residential condominiums at the Time Warner Center, has designed a new 21-story building that will soon begin construction in an area of Queens that has not seen a notable luxury residential project in over 10 years, according to developer Cord Meyer. The 95 condominium apartments will be in a residential tower as part of a mixed-use project, and units will range from one to three bedrooms, 725 to 1,750 square feet. The tower will include a 24-hour doorman, fitness facility, roof terrace and other amenities. Below the tower will be 8,000 square feet of commercial space. Construction is expected to be completed in fall 2005.

FROM JUNE 2004 ISSUE:

Dumbo
70 Washington St. and 35 York St.
Two conjoined buildings topped by a clock that occupy an entire block in Dumbo will begin to be converted into luxury apartments in July by Two Trees Management. The building currently houses a mix of industrial tenants, whose leases all expire this year.

Dumbo
38 Water Street
Two Trees Management plans to build a 16-story apartment building on the site of the St. Ann’s Warehouse, a performing arts center near the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. No timetable for construction has been released.

HARLEM
65-71 East 130th Street
Seven-story, 25-unit market rate apartment building planned between Madison and Park Avenues. The project is being built on four contiguous vacant lots by East Harlem Development Corp. Construction will begin this spring.

HARLEM
2000 Fifth Avenue
Nine-story co-op with 23 units planned for the corner of Fifth Avenue and 124th Street, across from Marcus Garvey Park. The building will also include a retail component, sublevel parking for 32 cars and a community facility. Upside Ventures represented both the owners and developers of the site. Construction will begin this spring.

HARLEM
The Clayton
257 West 117th Street
Seven-story townhouse built in 1890s being converted to 16 apartments. Units will be two-bedroom, two-bathroom and range from 2,200 to 2,800 square feet. Prices start at $1.1 million. Bridge Capital Corporation is the building owner. Project to be completed by late August. Contact: Lawrence Comroe and Tony Oakley, Corcoran, 212-875-2942.

LONG ISLAND CITY
Two condominium towers slated for the site of the East River Tennis Club just south of the Queensboro Bridge. The waterfront towers will each be 28 stories, and will have a total of 540 one- to three-bedroom apartments. Prices have not been set. The buildings are part of a larger plan by Vernon Realty of New Jersey to build 910 residences, which will also include townhouses, lofts and rentals, in six buildings on six acres. There also will be a park, a riverfront promenade and gardens as well as 20,000 square feet of retail space. Construction on the two towers is set to begin in August. Contact: Andrew Gerringer, Douglas Elliman Development Marketing Group, 212-702-4060.

MIDTOWN
112 Central Park South
208-room, 27-floor former InterContinental hotel to be converted to 65 co-op units, each with one to three bedrooms and 1,000 to 2,365 square feet of space. Prices haven’t been set, but are expected to range from $1 million to $5 million. Though a co-op (because the developer rents the land under the building), owners will not need board approval to sell or sublet their units. Anbau Enterprises is the developer; Costas Kondylis & Partners is the renovation architect. Sales are expected to start by the end of the year and the project is expected to be finished in 15 months. Contact: Anbau Enterprises, 212-938-0090.

MIDTOWN EAST
Park Avenue Place
60 East 55th Street
New 45-story condo development rising between Park and Madison Avenues that will offer 76 units featuring a variety of studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom layouts. Apartments will range from 446 to 2,950 square feet. The building will also include the 23,000-square-foot “Core Club” in its first five floors, a private club open to building residents. It will include a new restaurant and bar by chef Tom Colicchio of Craft, as well as a library, lounge, screening room and meeting rooms. There will also be a spa and fitness studio, and changing facilities with butler service. The project is being developed by Davis/RFR. Architects Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates designed the tower, which features a glass exterior, and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP served as interior architects for the project. The Marketing Directors are the property’s sales and marketing agent. Sales are already underway and the project is slated for occupancy in December. Contact: Park Avenue Place sales center, 212-813-9055.

SOUTH STREET SEAPORT
233 Front Street
11-story, 96-unit rental building, primarily one- and two- bedrooms, with a few studios and three-bedrooms. Rents are expected to range from $2,100 to $3,000 for a one bedroom. In addition to top amenities, some apartments have views of the Brooklyn Bridge and access to backyard gardens. Sciame Development and Construction Co. is the general contractor. Apartments will go on the market this fall.

WALL STREET
The Crest
63 Wall Street
A 37-story, 476-unit rental building converted from the former home of Brown Brothers Harriman. Studios will rent for $1,770. Apartments range from 425 to 2,000 square feet. The 1929 neoclassical-style building will also feature a “Great Room” with billiards area, baby grand piano, library, screening room, common sundeck, and ATM and DVD rental services. Developed by Metro Loft Management. Set to open in June. Contact: crestnyc.com

SALES UPDATES:
GREENWICH VILLAGE
One Morton Square
All six of the townhouse residences at Morton Square, a development by JD Carlisle Development Corp. were sold as of last month. The last townhouse achieved a price of $4.25 million. The townhouses are three stories, with three to four bedrooms, and four-and-a-half-baths. The 147 lofts, townhouses and family size classic residences in Morton Square will be completed and available for occupancy this summer. Contact: mortonsquare.com.

UPPER EAST SIDE
The Metropolitan
181 East 90th Street
More than 70 percent of the condos have been sold in the first 25 weeks since the sales office opened its doors, according to developer Sherwood Properties. Buyers had signed over $100 million in sales contracts since sales commenced on Sept. 15. The Philip Johnson-designed building features 94 famliy- sized homes. Prices range from $850,000 to $7.95 million for the 3,550-square-foot terraced penthouse. Contact: Michelle Conte, Brown Harris Stevens, 212-906-9393.

GREENWICH VILLAGE
505 Greenwich Street
More than 80 percent of the units have been sold at the 14-story condo building with 104 units following the beginning of sales in January. The building, which is to be completed this fall, has 25 three-bedroom apartments, 42 two-bedroom units and 37 one-bedroom apartments, with sizes ranging from 722 to 2,400 square feet. Contact: 505 Greenwich Street Presentation Center, 212-505-9600, or visit 505greenwich.com.

UPPER EAST SIDE
The Seville
300 East 77th Street
Nearly 85 percent of the residences have been sold at the 32-story tower designed by architect Robert A.M. Stern. The majority of the 84 residences are two-bedroom apartments, with the remaining mix comprised of one- and three-bedrooms, and two full-floor penthouses. Prices of the available homes start at $2.1 million for two-bedrooms and $2.975 million for three-bedroom residences. The penthouses are priced at $8.2 and $9 million. The building is already completed, but several homes were recently released for purchase. Contact: The Marketing Directors, 212-826-8822.

FROM MAY 2004 ISSUE:

HARLEM
Strivers Gardens
300 West 135th Street
Two towers, one 12-stories tall and one seven stories, with 170 condominium apartments. Apartments are for sale by lottery, with the minimum household income required at $48,000, and the maximum at $157,000. Preference for half the apartments is to be given to applicants living within Community Board 10. Apartments range from a 673 square foot one-bedroom for $143,000 to a 1,182 square foot three-bedroom penthouse with rooftop terrace for $529,000. Applications can only be mailed and must be postmarked from April 21 to June 21. The project is expected to be completed by January. Contact: striversgardens.com.

GRAMERCY HILL
120 East 29th Street
Restoration of five 1880 s era contiguous brownstones. Project includes adding two and a half stories to the five-story buildings, which will have a total of 25 one-to-four bedroom condominiums, priced from $675,000 to $2.4 million and ranging in size from 1,000 square feet to 2,659 square feet. Features will include oversized windows, high ceilings, and new oak floors with walnut inlay trim. The six ground-floor duplexes will have private gardens while 11 of the residences will offer either a private terrace or balcony. The developer is Alchemy Properties and Hustvedt Cutler Architects was retained for the project, which is expected to be completed by December.

MADISON SQUARE PARK
50 Madison Avenue
Combines a restored 1898 five-story mansion with a new eight-story tower on top, overlooking Madison Square Park. Contains eight 3-bedroom, 3.5 bath residences priced from $2.65 million and a duplex penthouse priced at $5 million. The penthouse has 3,500 square feet of space and two terraces that together comprise 1,000 square feet. Kitchens will offer cherry cabinets, granite countertops, Sub-Zero refrigerators and freezers, Viking and Bosch appliances and kitchen islands with wine coolers. Samson Management LLC is the developer. Sales began last month, and occupancy is slated for spring 2005. Contact: Halstead Property and senior vice president, Louise Phillips Forbes, 212-381-3329.

UPPER EAST SIDE
205 East 59th Street
27-floor condo building across the street from Bloomingdale s. There will be 62 one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments varying from 1,113 to 1,552 square feet, ranging in price from $1.47 million to $3 million. There will also be a 2,702 square foot penthouse, not yet for sale. Each apartment is to have a gas-burning fireplace and at least one balcony, and two apartments on each floor are to have solariums. Some apartment will have living rooms with 20-foot ceilings. The building also features a park for dogs as part of an outdoor area on the fifth floor. Construction began last March and is expected to be completed early next year. Contact: The Sunshine Group, 212-750-0500.

UPPER WEST SIDE
The Hopkins
172 West 79th Street
Pre-war apartment building being converted from rental to condominium ownership. The 20-story building, which was constructed in 1929 and has been under the same family ownership for over 60 years, will be bringing a total of 99 apartments to market. Apartments will include 17 three-room and 37 four-room apartments, all potentially convertible to two-bedroom residences. There will also be 35 two-bedroom/two bath units as well as 10 large “irregular” apartments containing six or more rooms. Apartments range in size from 800 square feet to over 2,000 square feet. Opening prices are expected to range from $550,000 to more than $2.5 million. As part of a year-long, $3 million renovation and capital improvement program, the building will soon feature two new elevators, new windows, a new boiler, a newly furnished and decorated lobby, new corridors and a new security system. Apartments will feature new kitchens, bathrooms and washer/dryers in every unit. Sales are expected to begin later this spring. Contact: Jud Ebersman, Walter & Samuels Inc., (212) 696-7128.

UPPER WEST SIDE
West 58
426 West 58th Street
A century-old mid-rise building on top of which six modern penthouse floors are being built. The condominium features 16 two and three bedroom units. Nine of the units are already in contract for prices ranging from $1.4 million to $3.3 million. The remaining units are currently priced from $1.4 million for two-bedroom residences to $5 million for the penthouses. Prices on the units have been raised four separate times since going on sale. The developer is Elad Properties. Occupancy is scheduled for early next year. Contact: Iva Spitzer, Douglas Elliman, 212-247-5858.

FROM APRIL 2004 ISSUE:

GREENWICH VILLAGE
505 Greenwich Street
A 14-story condo building with 104 units. Building will contain 25 three-bedroom, 42 two-bedroom, and 37 one-bedroom apartments. Prices range from $825,000 to $3.5 million. Individual units have large living rooms with mahogany flooring, and kitchens feature top appliances including wine refrigerators. The building includes a 24/7 concierge, resident manager, private courtyard, fitness center and pet spa. The project is being developed by Metropolitan Housing Partners and Apollo Real Estate. Occupancy is scheduled to begin this autumn. Contact: 505 Greenwich Street Presentation Center, 212-505-9600, or visit 505greenwich.com.

HARLEM
Rosa Parks Condominiums
163 St. Nicholas Avenue (at 118th Street)
A six-story, 64-unit condo building with one, two and three-bedroom units.
Prices range from $195,000 to $260,000 for a one bedroom, $500,000 to $640,000 for a two bedroom, and $600,000 to $825,000 for three-bedroom penthouses. Building features 24-hour concierge, video security, gym, rooftop garden, and wiring for high-speed Internet. Taxes are $7 to $25 annually, and building features low common charges, including $166 to $200 for a one-bedroom apartment. Developed by Artimus Construction. Set to open in April. Contact: Douglas Elliman Development Marketing Group, 212-702-4060, or visit rosaparkscondos.com.

LOWER MANHATTAN
15 Broad Street.
Conversion of former J.P. Morgan building to 250 condos. Project is being developed by LB Lev Leviev/Boymelgreen. Philippe Starke is also working on the project, his first residential building in New York. The building will include basketball courts, bowling alley and a pool. Scheduled to open in May. Contact: The Sunshine Group, 212-750-0500.

LOWER MANHATTAN
63 Wall Street
Conversion of former Brown Brothers Harriman headquarters to 476 rentals, with leasing to begin this month. Monthly rents for studio to two-bedroom apartments will be $1,700 to $3,600. The project is being developed by Nathan Berman and Ronny Bruckner.

MIDTOWN
425 Fifth Avenue (at 38th Street)
A 67-floor building by architect Michael Graves with 176 condos. Includes a 24-hour doorman. Gym (with sauna, steam room and lap pool) available. Office space on the first six floors of the building. Studios are priced from $420,000 to $730,000, one bedrooms from $525,000 to $1.4 million, two bedrooms from $750,000 to $2.5 million, and three bedrooms start at $2.9 million. A 3,706 square foot duplex penthouse is on the market for $10.5 million. About 80 percent of the building was already sold as of last month. The building will officially open in June. Contact: The Marketing Directors, 212-683-3331.

TRIBECA
The Grabler
44 Laight Street
Conversion of former warehouse to 18 units ranging in size from 1,580 to more than 4,500 square feet. Apartments in the lower floors are unfinished; eight apartments on the top three floors are fully finished, most also have 1,500 square foot terraces. Prices range from $1.295 million to $2.95 million. 14 parking spaces are also for sale for $169,000 apiece. The building is already 50 percent sold and will open this summer. Contact: Corcoran Group Marketing, 212-343-5400.

UPPER EAST SIDE
47 East 91st Street.
Eight-story condominium building. Seven apartments, each full-floor, will be 4,100 square feet, while the other, a duplex penthouse, will be 5,800 square feet plus a wrap-around garden. Prices to range from $5 to $15 million. Occupancy expected around May. Stribling Marketing Associates is marketing the building. Contact: Sales office at 212-828-7033, or visit 47east91.com.

WILLIAMSBURG
170 Broadway
Newly built seven-story condominium with a total of 12 two-bedroom apartments. Prices range from $400,000 to $525,000. All residences have a balcony or terrace. Units feature solid oak strip flooring, recessed lighting, central heat and air conditioning, a stacked washer/dryer, fully equipped kitchen with solid birch wood cabinets, and bathrooms with marble floors and walls. Sales are underway, and occupancy is expected in the late spring. Contact: Helene Luchnick, Douglas Elliman, 212-965-6008.

FROM MARCH 2004 ISSUE:

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN
Smith, Schermerhorn, State and Hoyt Streets
A 500,000 square foot mixed-use project will begin on a block currently vacant except for five National Register brownstones. The project, a joint venture of Time Equities Inc. and Hamlin Ventures, will include single-family townhouses on State Street, condominium lofts and mews on Hoyt Street, and rental apartments on Smith Street. Schermerhorn Street will be the focus for the project s retail space. Construction will begin on the townhouses in late spring. Contact: Time Equities, 212-206-6000.

GREENPOINT
82-88 Green Street
New 16-unit condo building with two bedrooms ranging from 900 square feet to 1,600 square feet. Prices range from $425,000 to $550,000. The building, a project by developer Josh Guberman, is nearly 50 percent sold out. Another project, the Russell Court Condominiums at 190 Green Street, includes 26 units in a cluster of five buildings, with sales beginning a month ago. Contact: N/A

NORTHERN MANHATTAN
400 Lenox Avenue (at 129th Street)
The first luxury, doorman, non-subsidized housing in the immediate area in the past 75 years was given the green light by the city last month to begin construction. The 12-story building will include 92 units covering 130,000 square feet. There will also be 11,000 square feet of commercial space. Contact: N/A

SOHO
73 Wooster Street
A four-story building that previously housed a cardboard box manufacturer is being converted into a condominium with six lofts. Units are selling for $4.25 million to $6.75 million, and include four 4,300 square foot apartments and two 5,000 square foot penthouses. Sales began early last month. Contact: Douglas Elliman Development Marketing Group, 212-702-4060.

SOHO
60 Spring Street
39 apartments in the 1923 Cass Gilbert building range from one to three bedrooms, from 1,100 square feet to 2,200 square feet. A penthouse apartment features a large terrace and a fireplace and measures 2,750 square feet. Prices range from $1.48 million to more than $7 million. The building, which is being developed by Boymelgreen Developers, was 75 percent sold as of January. Occupancy is scheduled for March. Contact: The Sunshine Group, 212-750-0500.

TRIBECA
114 and 116 Hudson Street
$14 million residential project being developed by actor Robert DeNiro in conjunction with with AFC Realty Capital. The project will join an existing five-story brick building at 116 Hudson Street with a new seven-story glass structure that will be built on a lot at 114 Hudson Street. The project will include five loft condominiums, including a duplex penthouse. Four apartments will be 2,000 square feet and cost $2 million, and the penthouse will be 3,000 feet at cost $3.5 million. Sales are set to begin in March. Contact: Stribling Marketing Associates, 212-941-8420.

TRIBECA
The River Lofts
92 Laight and 424 Washington Streets
The project consists of two buildings, one new and one old. 92 Laight is a new brick tower with 38 units and 424 Washington is a converted industrial building with 30 lofts. Units range from one to four bedroom apartments (1,100 to 3,900 square feet), priced from $1.125 million to $8.55 million. The project, by Boymelgreen Developers, will be ready for occupancy in 2005. Contact: The Sunshine Group, 212-750-0500.

UPPER WEST SIDE
43 West 64 Street
Features 32 open, loft-style residences ranging from 1,600 to 6,151 square feet, listed from $1.5 to $10.2 million. Over ninety percent of the residences have been sold, including three of the four penthouses. There have been 20 units totaling approximately $70 million sold within the last four months, including the three most expensive properties in the building, according to the Athena Group. O Neal s Restaurant, by restaurateur Michael O Neal, opened on the ground floor of the building at the end of the year. Contact: The Athena Group, 212-459-0200, or visit 43west64.com.

UPPER WEST SIDE
44 West 63rd Street (Empire Hotel)
Financing was recently arranged for a project to convert the 373-key Empire Hotel to 125 luxury condominium units. The 14-story, W-shaped building on Broadway will include more than 200,000 square feet of apartments and 25,000 square feet of retail space. Contact: N/A

UPPER WEST SIDE
The Opus
2770 Broadway (at 107th Street)
Plans were unveiled last month for a 64-unit condominium building to be developed by The Clarett Group at the site of the former Olympia Theatre previously owned by Cablevision Systems. The homes at the $75 million project will take their inspiration from the “Classic 6″ and “Classic 7″ apartments constructed in the area at the turn-of-the-century, the developers said, and the building will also feature 7,500 square feet of retail space on the ground floor. Apartments range from 1,200 to 2,200 square feet, with two to five bedrooms. Prices range from $900,000 to $3 million and opening is set for January 2005. A sales office has already opened a block north of the building, and nine contracts were out on the condos as of early last month. Contact: The Clarett Group, 212-399-2400 or visit clarett.com.

FROM FEBRUARY 2004 ISSUE:

COBBLE HILL
The Arches at Cobble Hill.
57 units in new development. Units range from one to four bedrooms (875 to 3,000 square feet). Prices range from $535,000 to $1.8 million. Set to open around this fall. Contact: www.thearchesatcobblehill.com.

GREENWICH VILLAGE
The Greenwich Street Project
497 Greenwich Street
Six-story condominium with 22 units in former warehouse building. Prices range from $1.2 to $7 million. Units range from two to four bedrooms (1,600 to 3,500 square feet). Approximately 65 percent of the units are still for sale, mostly between $2 and $3 million. Set to open in late February or early March. Contact: Cantor-Pecorella, 212-925-3333

GREENWICH VILLAGE
One Morton Square.
Town houses, lofts, rental apartments and 147 condominium units. Two-bedroom, 2.5-bath condo units are priced at $1.3 million. Three-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bath town houses with home offices, private elevators and back gardens start at $3.75 million. Scheduled to be ready for occupancy this spring. Contact: 212-366-1515 or visit www.mortonsquare.com.

LOWER EAST SIDE
7 Essex Street
11-story condominium with 16 units. Units range from 1,584 to 3,690 square feet. Prices range from $825,000 to $2.275 million. Four units were still available as of last month, ranging in price from $1.9 to $2.6 million. Contact: 7 Essex Street, LLC, 212-925-9991.

SOHO
Soho 25
25 West Houston Street
Nine-story condominium with 32 one and two-bedroom lofts. Prices start at $600,000 and go up to $4.5 million. The building, unusual for SoHo, is being sold to non-artists. All but one of the residences had been sold as of December. Set to open this spring. Contact: The Marketing Directors, 212-368-2500, or visit www.soho25lofts.com.

WILLIAMSBURG
The Gretsch Building
60 Broadway
10 story condominium with 130 apartments. Units range from studio to three bedrooms (620 to 2,500 square feet). Prices range from $309,000 to $1.27 million (and higher for two and three bedroom penthouses). Approximately 34 units in the building remain unsold. Set to open this fall. Contact: 1-888-GRETSCH.

FROM JANUARY 2004 ISSUE:

CHELSEA
The Aston
The 38-floor rental tower on the Avenue of the Americas between 27th and 28th Streets was scheduled for completion by the end of 2003. The building includes 269 units is being developed by the Manhattan-based Adell Corporation.

GRAMERCY PARK AREA
49 East 21st Street
Former United Federation of Teachers office building converted to a condo with 43 units by developer Elad Properties of Fort Lee, NJ. The 12-story building features “loftlike” apartments, which range from $910,000 to $2.6 million. The sales office opened on the ground floor of the building in November.

HELL S KITCHEN
Loft 55
419 West 55th Street
A new residential sales building that was scheduled to open in mid-November. All lofts in this 24-unit, seven-story co-op building have 10- to 12-foot ceilings. Studios start at $395,000, one-bedrooms at $425,000, and two-bedrooms at $475,000. The penthouse, a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment with a separate studio, gas fireplace, and skylight, and 1,000 square feet of outside private terrace will sell for $1,395,000. Contact: Developer Anbau Enterprises Inc., 212-741-1325.

TRIBECA
48 Laight Street
Six-story condo building with nine apartments. The units range from 1,400 to 1,900 square feet and from one to three bedrooms.. There will also be a 2,300-square-foot penthouse. Preconstruction prices are to be $975,000 to $1.6 million for the apartments and $3 million for the penthouse. Sales begin Jan. 5. Contact. Citi Habitats, 212-685-7777.

UPPER WEST SIDE
455 Central Park West
The 26-story condo tower between 105th and 106th Streets includes 53 apartments, 44 of which went on the market in December at prices of $1.35 million to $4.5 million. Units feature large rooms, eat-in kitchens, formal dining rooms, high ceilings, granite countertops, marble bathrooms with showers and tubs, and a lap pool in the building and concierge services. In addition, a French Renaissance chateau at the front of the property, which has sat vacant for decades, is also being renovated, and will be finished at a later date. Each of the 17 units in the chateau are expected to sell for between $3.5 and $7.5 million. Contact: The Marketing Directors, 212-665-5100, or visit www.455cpw.com.

If there’s one thing that landlords can bank on, it’s the creditworthiness of banks.

“After the U.S. government, banks are the second-most desirable tenant from a credit perspective,” says Richard Hodos, president of Madison HGCD, a retail brokerage firm.

It’s no surprise that the proliferation of bank branches throughout the city in the past few years has meant relief for people searching for ATMs, but also means many other retailers have had a harder time securing space as banks stay on the prowl for high-visibility locations.

Banks, with great credit and willingness to pay more in rent, “have foiled many a deal in Manhattan,” Hodos said.

The bank explosion began two or three years ago, following a long period in the 1990s when banks were downsizing, says Alan Victor, an executive vice president with the Lansco Corp.

From June 1994 to June 2001, the number of bank branches in Manhattan fell by almost a quarter, to 450, according to federal data. But from June 2001 to 2003, nearly a hundred new branches opened.

That’s not exactly shocking to many city dwellers. It’s been hard to miss the legions of new branches, from out of state banks such as Washington Mutual, Wachovia and Bank of America to the growing ranks of Citibank and J.P. Morgan Chase branches.

Some areas are especially blessed – or cursed, depending on one’s perspective – with panoplies of banks. Broadway from 86th Street to 96th Street, for example, is home to nine banks.

“ATM fees have funded a lot of it,” says Faith Hope Consolo, vice chairman at Garrick-Aug Worldwide.

Though landlords might have once frowned on the prevalence of banks, brokers say that hasn’t been the case for a while. “I haven’t heard that in a really long time,” Consolo says.

But other retailers are less sanguine. Banks “don’t help other retailers,” Victor says. “It would be better for Banana Republic to be next to another retailer.” Hodos agrees. “When banks are placed within a retail strip or street, they break up that continuity,” he says. The only plus for retailers is the ATM factor.

Banks that snatch up high-visibility corner locations have made it harder for other retailers to secure those spots.

“You find that banks generally pay very close to the asking rental price,” Victor says. “Some other retailers are more rent-sensitive.”

In part, that’s because banks view their branches not just as money-making centers but as marketing venues, he says.

“An apparel user has to factor in sales volume,” Victor says. “Banks can spread this out over a lot of branches and attribute a certain amount of the cost to public relations.”

Depending on the neighborhood, the difference between what a bank would pay in rent and what another retailer would pay could be 10 to 15 percent, Victor says.

And then there is the credit issue. It’s hard for other merchants, particularly retailers, to compete with institutions that are partially backed by the federal government.

“There’s a saying that retailers are either emerging from bankruptcy or heading into bankruptcy,” Hodos says. That includes well-known national retailers from K-Mart to Federated Department Stores, he says. “It’s become a strategy.”

But there is a bright side for retailers that are edged out: This too shall pass, agents say.

“Everything is cyclical,” says Hodos. The bank boom, which many say started in the last two or three years, will probably continue for just another year or two before fading, he predicts.

“It’s starting to slow already,” Victor says. “It depends on the success of the ones that are here.”

Lincoln Square, the neighborhood surrounding the city’s most prominent performing arts hub, tops many lists when observers look for success stories of large-scale urban renewal.

The shops, restaurants, television studios, movie theaters, and eight residential properties erected in the last three years all take their energy and vitality from Lincoln Center. That vindicates the city planners who 50 years ago conceived the largest performing arts institution in the world.

Now, a $325 million redevelopment project is reshaping Lincoln Center to help better integrate it into the surrounding community. Add the new Time Warner building and its more than 40 high-end shops at the southern tip of the neighborhood, and it’s easy to see which direction area retail is headed.

“The per square footage rate is going to increase, which is going to make it hard for your neighborhood dry cleaner or liquor store,” said Michael Goldenberg, executive director of sales for Halstead’s West Side office. “You could soon see a Bendel’s, a Tiffany’s or a Sherry-Lehmann [wine shop] in Lincoln Square.”

That day has yet to arrive, however, and for now residential buildings will continue to balance their projects on the backs of large national chain stores, as is the trend throughout most of the Upper West Side, Goldenberg added.

A 53,000 square foot Bed Bath & Beyond store is set to open shortly on the ground floor of the Grand Tier, a 232-unit rental building developed by Glenwood Management on the corner of 65th and Broadway.

Around the corner on 63rd Street, an additional 25,000 square feet of retail space will open in the old Empire Hotel, which is being converted into 125 luxury condominiums.

And at 43 West 64th Street, the newly remodeled O’Neal’s Restaurant is opening on the ground floor of a recently converted luxury condo building developed by the Athena Group.

In contrast, over at Trump Place along the West Side Highway running from 59th to 72nd Streets – which is technically inside the Lincoln Square neighborhood – developers are trying to maintain a less intrusive retail environment.

“We’re striving for smaller, exclusive service retail for the residents so that we don’t have unnecessary deliveries and clatter and trash that comes along with larger scale retail,” said Paul Davis, the chief executive officer of Hudson Waterfront Associates, the developer working with Donald Trump.

Of the two condos and three rentals now on the market, the condos have sold out, as have 92 percent of the rental units, which average $50 a square foot. The development’s most expensive condo, at 72nd Street, is nearing completion (with 83 percent pre-sold) and another three buildings will rise over the next two years. Davis is forecasting another seven to eight years of construction, by which time there will be 17 waterfront buildings, 5,700 apartment units, 137,800 feet of retail space and a 21.5-acre park.

The speed with which the Trump buildings sold out speaks to the cachet of the neighborhood but is also a product of favorable interest rates and improved amenities, such as the newly remodeled 72nd Street subway station, said Goldenberg.

But at the heart of the growth is still the overarching influence of the Lincoln Center campus, which generates over $1 billion for the city’s economy, said Monica Blum, president of the Lincoln Square Business Improvement District.

Restaurants in the area typically draw in diners before a long night at Avery Fisher Hall, and Blum said she doesn’t think that will change with the opening of the Time Warner Center. Not everyone may feel like removing themselves to those high-end restaurants, which for many are more a part of Midtown than they are Lincoln Square, she said.

Long-established stalwarts like Cafe Fiorello, Shun Lee West and O’Neal’s are revamping, but high rents may deter any new restaurants opening along Broadway.

Chase Welles, a retail broker with Northwest Atlantic Real Estate who has done several local restaurant deals, said he expects the dining district to expand both north and south towards 72nd and 57th Streets.

“My opinion is side streets will run between $80 and $85 a square foot, and space in general between $60 and $175,” he said. “I don’t think rents will necessarily go higher because of the influence of Time Warner.”

Resident Ann Cutbill Lenane, an executive vice president at Douglas Elliman, said Lincoln Square is a wonderful neighborhood in which to raise a family, given its close proximity to excellent schools, the park, a YMCA on 65th Street and of course, the cultural offerings of Lincoln Center. Lenane also applauded the retail offerings, such as the Bed Bath & Beyond store.

Still, other residents said they feared success would spoil the area. Many worry that the essential character of Lincoln Square as an arts hub will be obscured when it’s overrun by shoppers and excessive traffic drawn to entertainment, restaurants, cafes and movie theatres.

It’s the arcaded setbacks and extra wide sidewalks, along with the open feeling of the bow-tie intersections in the area that create a sense of intimacy, said Kate Wood, executive director of Landmark West, a 20-year-old organization that’s been working to preserve the architectural heritage of the Upper West Side. She said that may be lost with the construction of the 29-story Grand Tier building at 1926 Broadway.

Community Board 8 successfully restricted a planned 150-car public garage in the Grand Tier, but while zoning calls for wider sidewalks and arcades in the area, the building predated the zoning and so the sidewalks aren’t required to be as wide.

“Each individual development is taking more than it’s giving back,” lamented Wood.

A deal that brought big-box retailer Home Depot to Manhattan for the first time and a lease that helped to upgrade a rundown portion of 14th Street won retail Deal of the Year honors for 2003. Newmark brokers were among the winners for both awards.

The Real Estate Board of New York presented the awards at a cocktail party at the 101 Club last month.

Moshe Sukenik and Christopher Mongeluzo from Newmark & Company and Peter Cirlin and Steven Schwartz from Retail Realty won the award for the Most Creative Retail Deal of the Year for the Home Depot/Hasbro transaction at 28 and 40 West 23rd Street.

There were numerous obstacles, including complex deal structuring which required negotiations with four parties. But after much deliberation, Home Depot decided take the 110,000-square-foot space, a move that will transform the 23rd Street corridor between Broadway and Sixth Avenue.

Jeffrey Roseman and Paul Berkman from Newmark New Spectrum Realty and Bruce Shepard from E.M.B. Associates won the award for the Transaction that Most Benefits Manhattan’s Retail Market for a deal that brought the Guitar Center to 25 West 14th Street.

The building had in recent years become rundown and home to low-end discount and variety stores. Because it is the largest and most visible building on the street, the Guitar Center lease helps to revitalize the 14th Street thoroughfare.

Atlanta

Commercial Developer Regent Partners plans to put up an office tower on Peachtree Road, the first Buckhead office development in five years. That may signal a fresh return of confidence and jobs to the city. Bolstered by its central location and wealth of amenities, Buckhead has traditionally marched the rest of the city out of recession.

Commercial Even with office vacancy rates hovering at nearly 30 percent, some of Atlanta’s biggest developers have placed their bets on the Perimeter area. Developers have won zoning approval to add at least 9 million square feet of office space to the business district, where the crossroads of I-285 and Route 400 draws office workers from east, west, north and south.

Boston

Residential As home prices rise on the island of Nantucket, many inns are being reconverted into private homes. More than 300 bed-and-breakfast rooms have been lost in the last 10 years, leaving a total of less than 60 inns and only 1,000 rooms. The median home price on the island surged from $290,000 in 1995 to $917,000 last year, and many innkeepers are cashing in to reap the benefits of such rapid appreciation. Similar trends are occuring in Santa Barbara, Calif., and Park City, Utah.

Residential As the Boston Archdiocese prepares to put 60 churches up for sale, developers and real estate brokers predict they will be scooped up and converted into condos because the market is hot for trendy, distinctive real estate. Others point out the tremendous loss of community caused by conversion to high-end condos, while others say apartment buyers often have an aversion to living in a building that was once a church.

Chicago

Commercial Suburban office rents in Chicago are among the lowest in major U.S. markets. The Studley Effective Rent Index concludes that they are almost break-even, with the effective rent for office property owners in Cook County just $3.40 per square foot after concessions are factored in, and just $3.08 per square foot in Lake and DuPage counties. Downtown isn’t doing much better – property owners’ effective rent is $5.75 per square foot, among the worst central business districts in the nation, the report found.

Residential The market for new condo units in Chicago’s downtown area has remained active despite a rise in interest rates, according to the Appraisal Research Counselors of Chicago. The market has been especially strong at the entry level. About two-thirds of condo sales during the first quarter were at the low end of the price scale, under $400 a square foot, the appraisal company said. Some brokers say anything under $400,000 is moving well.

Detroit

Commercial Borders Books & Music has become an urban pioneer. The book retailer is opening stores in Chicago, San Francisco and Detroit in once-devastated retail areas or in commercial or industrial areas that have never had places to shop. The Detroit store opened recently on the ground floor of Compuware Corp.’s new world headquarters, amid shuttered storefronts and empty buildings – many of them under renovation. The 8,000-square-foot store is less than half the size of a typical Borders superstore.

Commercial Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick wants to build a new 1.2 million-square- foot convention center – and possibly an adjacent hotel – in Detroit to replace the aging Cobo Center. But expansion of the existing Cobo Center won the recommendation of a local task force put together by the mayor and the Detroit Convention Bureau last month. A new facility is expected to cost more than $1 billion, but expansion could be done for between $400 million and $650 million, the task force said.

Los Angelos

Residential The housing market in the Los Angeles area is coming back down to earth, according to local real estate brokers. Inventory is creeping up, price increases are slowing down, and the prolonged housing boom may finally be showing its age. The inventory of listed homes has doubled and even tripled in some parts of the Los Angeles basin, according to Inman News.

Commercial Six buildings under construction on and near Alameda Street will, over the next two years, expand L.A.’s downtown renaissance to the old neighborhood of El Pueblo, where the city was founded in 1781. The new construction includes a pair of U.S. Postal Service buildings and a 278-unit apartment complex. Some developers say the new buildings are part of the “recentralization” of Los Angeles.

Commercial Denver mogul Phil Anschutz’s AEG Inc. has bought a 40 percent interest in the Staples Center from Fox Entertainment Group for an undisclosed price. As AEG buys in, the Center may be getting more neighboring retail – a 4 million-square-foot sports and entertainment district adjacent to the Center called L.A. Live. The proposed development features a 7,000-seat theatre and 1,200-room, 45-story convention center hotel in addition to residential housing, entertainment, retail, office space and parking. L.A. is the only city with a convention center that does not have a hotel development nearby, according to mayor James Hahn.

Miami

Residential Federal officials believe Florida’s residential real estate market is awash in laundered money as buyers use shell companies to purchase upscale homes to conceal criminal activity, according to the Financial Times newspaper. The state’s homestead exemption has long made it a hot spot for criminals who want to keep their homes after filing bankruptcy. For example, a luxury condo in Key Biscayne owned by former Nicaraguan tax collector Byron Jerez-Solis, was seized by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in December because it allegedly was purchased with laundered funds. Even more aggressive policing could develop if the property industry is forced to comply with the USA Patriot Act’s anti-money laundering provisions, developed following Sept. 11.

Residential/Commercial More than 35,000 new condo units are expected in South Florida during the next three years or so and more than 10,000 apartment-to-condo conversions are in the works for the next 12 months alone, according to Picot & Co. Realty Advisors. Sales in those new developments could be helped by the drop in the value of the U.S. dollar against the Euro, since buyers from Europe and Latin America can sometimes represent up to 50 percent of the purchasers in a new project, developers say.

Philadelphia

Residential One of the few remaining Main Line estates that harks back to the genesis of the area as a summer retreat for wealthy city dwellers is on the market for $13.5 million, an asking price rarely seen in the area. Named Roselawn, the 1928 Tudor mansion, off Spring Mill Road in Villanova, has 20,000 square feet of living space, eight bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, and a theater, game room and library. It sits on 7.35 acres and also has an indoor and outdoor pool.

San Francisco

Residential The median price paid for a home in the San Francisco Bay Area passed the half-million dollar mark in May, DataQuick Information Systems reported. The median price paid for a Bay Area home was $506,000, a new peak. That was up 2.8 percent from $492,000 in April, and up 18.5 percent from $427,000 in May of last year.

Commercial Bank of America may sell its 50 percent share of the mammoth Bank of America Center, the premier office high-rise in San Francisco. Brokers said the building could fetch anywhere from $375 to $600 per square foot – a wide range that attests to both the shaky nature of the San Francisco market and the huge investor demand for commercial property. Given the building’s 1.8 million square feet of rentable office space, that would value BofA’s stake at between $337 million to $540 million.

Seattle

Commercial A new report by Colliers ABR finds that while the overall office vacancy rate in the Puget Sound area is at about 16 percent, the overall vacancy rate for lab space is less than 7 percent. The first life sciences real estate market report by Colliers said the Puget Sound area has more than 175 biotechnology and medical technology companies taking around 3 million square feet of office space in the area.

Washington, D.C.

Residential Ocean City in Maryland, once a middle-class holiday retreat, is morphing into an expensive resort destination, according to the Baltimore Sun. The purchase prices of property have doubled and tripled in the past four years, according to local brokers. The first waterfront condos in the area went on the market for $400,000, and are now selling for $1 million to $1.5 million.

Residential/Commercial Housing developers searching for ever-scarcer D.C. sites are moving into a new neighborhood: The H Street corridor of Northeast, a dilapidated stretch of boarded-up buildings and riot-scarred storefronts that for decades has seen little investment. Two large parcels, slated for hundreds of residential units, are now under contract along the heavily traveled east-west thoroughfare on the northern edge of Capitol Hill. Huge office buildings are also under construction or planned nearby. The D.C. government recently approved a Strategic Development Plan for H Street calling for more than $300 million in investment.

Residential In recent years, the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area has experienced the nation’s most dramatic shift from barely affordable to unaffordable homeownership, according to a new Fannie Mae study. In 1999, a Washington, D.C.-area family that earned $62,000 could qualify for a mortgage on a median-priced house. By this year, a family had to make $100,000.

How will Ratner s stadium and 4,500 new housing units impact  Downtown Brooklyn? [more]

Viewed by some as one of the most affordable areas in Manhattan despite its Upper East Side pedigree, Yorkville has seen a continuous 10-year building boom that has kept inventory plentiful, although prices have begun to rise, as they have throughout the rest of the city.

A 65-block area running from 79th to 96th Street and Third to East End Avenue, Yorkville is still very much a neighborhood of contrasts – somewhat undervalued but affluent. The area attracts fresh-out-of-school graduates looking for affordable studios and one-bedrooms in the side street walkups or high-rise apartments west of Second Avenue on 79th, 86th or 96th Streets, as well as families with young children who want to be near East End’s Carl Schulz Park.

A neighborhood bursting at the seams with residential high-rise development, Yorkville is often associated with the towering edifices that, according to old-time residents, make the area around First, Second and Third Avenues somewhat cold and forbidding.

A serene, small-town residential feel still dominates the low-lying townhouses and prewar tenement buildings that dot the side streets. Further east along York and East End Avenues’ rolling promenades, open green spaces and discreet restaurants and shops lend the neighborhood a parochial, even folksy air.

“It used to be much more of a bargain than it is now,” said Seiglinda O’Donnell, a 30-plus-year East End resident and vice president with William B. May. She offered as an example a three-bedroom post-war apartment on 86th Street between First and York Avenues, which she sold for $452,000 four years ago and which has since doubled to $925,000.

Recently built high-end buildings such as the Chartwell House (finished in 2001) on Second Avenue between 91st and 92nd Streets and the Philip Johnson-designed Metropolitan at 90th and Third Avenue (nearing completion) filled up quickly and are near 100 percent occupancy, noted Gordon Golub, manager of Citi Habitats’ East 84th Street office.

With interest rates rising, many buyers are turning to the rental market instead, and rental prices for high-end apartments in the area have increased more than 10 percent in the past six months, according to Golub.

Overall, in the past four years, about 1,000 rental units have been developed along First Avenue in the high 80s and low 90s, most of them in the $2,400 to $5,000 a month range, Golub said.

Older luxury high-rise buildings such as the Normandie Court at Third Avenue and 95th Street are also seeking to draw more high-end renters by combining units to draw families to the building.

“We’ve already noticed a change in more married couple types and families,” said John Sutherland, director of leasing for Ogden Cap Properties, which manages the Normandie Court, a 20-year-old 1,477-unit complex that has a reputation as one of the most affordable high-rise buildings in Manhattan.

In recent months, the Normandie added a children’s playroom and renovated its apartments, with particular attention focused on combining units to form larger two and three-bedroom apartments.

“We still have a number of people fresh out of college and sharing units, but the big difference is they’re paying more money,” Sutherland said of the building, which has earned the nickname “Dormandy Court” because of its young population.

Sutherland said rents have increased roughly 10 percent at the Normandie in the past six months, part of the first sustained resurgence for rentals in the city since Sept. 11.

Going forward, in addition to expansion northward, the neighborhood could soon see new residential development at the site formerly known as Doctor’s Hospital on East End Avenue, opposite Gracie Mansion. The trustees of Beth Israel Hospital voted in May to sell the site, and have reportedly attracted over 40 bids, most of which have plans for residential development. The site could be one of the most valuable sold for development in years.

With the new and existing development, Yorkville’s density is a concern to some residents and community activists like Gorman Reilly, president of CIVITAS, a zoning land use and neighborhood advocacy group. Reilly said the population is taking a toll on the transportation infrastructure in the area. “The M15 is the most heavily used bus route in the city, if not the nation, and it’s difficult to make any time [getting downtown],” Reilly said. He is lobbying the MTA for a rapid transit bus service for the area.

While the planned Second Avenue subway line – if it’s ever completed- could ease transportation woes, it would also spur on more condo and retail development as the area continues to evolve, said O’Donnell – something that she and other residents in the area said they welcomed.

“Up until six months ago Fresh Direct refused to deliver to the neighborhood,” said O’Donnell. “And now we have a health spa. We’re thrilled to pieces. The only thing we don’t have is a museum and a department store.”

Legislation has been introduced that would extend the U.S. government’s Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) through 2007.

While New York City real estate professionals are pushing for the renewal of the legislation, initially passed by Congress in 2002, they say there are also still lingering questions in place that must be addressed.

TRIA calls for the federal government to share in the cost of a foreign terrorist attack that produces at least $5 million in insured losses. The act is slated to expire in 2005.

Last month, four members of Congress including Sue Kelly (R-NY) introduced H.R. 4634, which would extend the act another two years.

The new legislation comes after the U.S. Treasury Department announced the week before that it would extend a provision of the current legislation that requires insurance firms to offer terrorism coverage to commercial clients on the same basis as other risks until the end of 2005.

The provision was set to expire on Dec. 31, and the Treasury had until Sept. 1 to make a decision, but decided to act ahead of time to help create a sense of certainty and help insurers plan ahead.

By most accounts, American businesses would find it exceedingly difficult to obtain insurance against losses from future terrorism-related events without TRIA in place to help share the costs of an attack -which, in turn, could have dire ramifications for the U.S. economy.

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, many insurers were unwilling to provide terrorism coverage to businesses. The law made terrorism coverage available, and prices initially skyrocketed, before reaching an equilibrium around early 2003.

A sign of the stability brought about by the federal program was shown in a recent study by insurance broker Marsh Inc., which found that the percentage of commercial real estate owners who purchased terrorism insurance rose in the first quarter to the highest level since the enactment of the act in 2002.

The study found that 52 percent of commercial real estate owners purchased the insurance in the first quarter, up from 28.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2003.

But Mark Edelstein, a partner who practices real estate law with Morrison & Foerster LLP in New York, said some lingering issues remain with the current legislation.

“One of the issues coming up on a lot of recent deals is whether the insurance obtainable only covers foreign terrorism,” he said. “If you look closely, the federal stuff only deals with foreign nationals.”

“The question is ‘why is the federal government distinguishing?’” Edelstein said. “We don’t really care whether it’s the Oklahoma bomber, or someone from another country.”

As a result, said Edelstein, “lenders are asking, ‘are you naked?’” – in other words, not adequately covered by insurance.

Herb Feldman, CEO of Alpha Risk Management, an independent insurance consulting firm in Great Neck, NY, not engaged in the sale of insurance, said it’s necessary to buy coverage against domestic terrorism separately.

“Lenders are requiring it,” he said. “The costs are much lower, and there is more availability of this type of coverage.”

Feldman also pointed out the importance of extending TRIA through 2007.

There are jobs at stake,” he said. “When there was a 14-month plus hiatus before [when coverage wasn't available], there were a lot of construction jobs that shut down.”

The $70 million automated New York City registery site for property transactions has gotten a $1 million upgrade that will allow many transactions to be conducted from home computers through a new e-filing system.

Title industry executives and transaction attorneys have been working with the Department of Finance to get to this milepost.

Still, there are typos that are getting through some of the examiners and creating bad data. Finance has asked that anyone noticing mistakes, such as co-op UCCs or condo transactions filed on the wrong block and lots to bring them to their attention.

The e-filings allow users to download forms from property registrations to mortgage taxes and smoke-detector compliance.

By obtaining the information electronically it allows the city to transmit filings to the state daily, rather than having it retyped for the State Taxation and Finance Department and the Office of Real Property Services.

Original documents with signatures still need to be filed, and the finance department is mere weeks away from centralizing its scanning. Since Queens has many more transactions than the Bronx, for instance, if Bronx personnel are not busy they will be able to help with the Queens transactions.

A UCC e-filing pilot is already underway because there are state standards for accepting such filings, and no signature is needed.

To check the new system, go to www.nyc.gov/acris and hit the tutorial button to learn how to file online.

Some homeowners could see a three-year property tax rebate under the city’s proposed budget agreement. That must still be approved by the New York State Assembly, which may balk at the $250 million annual cost of the measure.

Resident owners of Class One homes, Class One condos and Class Two condos and co-ops would see a $400 rebate, as would other primary resident owners.

Two items in the proposed legislation would keep the rebate from affecting a wider range of property classes, and the Real Estate Board of New York is lobbying for their inclusion.

The rebate also appears to be the carrot to help the city sign up about 70,000 “missing” prime residents for the School Tax Abatement Program, or STAR, so they would not be impacted by future imposition of the absentee owner tax.

The rebate will be based on payments of current fiscal 2004 taxes, but owners would receive their checks in fiscal 2005, probably in September or October, though the money could arrive even later, the city says.

According to the Department of Finance, if you already signed up for STAR, you will get the rebate. Mitchell Lama and Housing Development Fund Corporation (HDFC) residents, however, have been excluded from this rebate program.

Those people who count a New York City home or condo as their primary residence and who have not yet signed up for STAR now have until August 31 to sign up and receive the new rebate. If you buy a home on August 1, you can also get the rebate on the fiscal 2003/2004 taxes, even if the former owner paid them – unless other arrangements are made.

Each year, the rebate money will be paid out of the current fiscal year for the prior year’s taxes. Since the first budgetary impact will be in fiscal 2005, the money will become a deduction for the city from all property tax revenue and have no effect on the levy, class shares or tax rates, and be administered somewhat like the co-op/condo abatement.

The law is written, however, so those eligible with bills are less than $400, will get the lesser of $400 or the total tax. If you are delinquent by $25 or more, you also won’t be eligible for the rebate. The rebate will also not be credited against taxes owed.

According to Real Estate Board of New York President Steve Spinola, changes were made in the bill at the last minute, so that in no year in which the real estate tax rate is increased, can a rebate be issued. That means if the average tax rate is increased, a rebate cannot be issued.

There is also language that the city cannot request a continuation of the rebate without a reduction equal to the fiscal impact of the rebate shared with the rest of the tax classes. In other words, the tax rate would have to be reduced for all the classes, so the entire package would reduce taxes by $750 million plus the $250 million to Class One.

“We still don’t know if the State Senate will go along with and it is tied up,” said Spinola.

According to the 2003 National Association of Realtors Member Profile report, brokers and broker associates typically spent $1,700 on promotion and marketing in 2002. For sales agents, the average expenditure was $900.

I find these numbers disturbing.

Public relations and marketing are not frivolous items. They are essential tools that will grow your business substantially when they are used thoughtfully and consistently. Yet many veteran real estate professionals ignore or undervalue these business necessities.

Now is the perfect time to reevaluate your business model. An already competitive industry has become hyper-aggressive as many newcomers with advanced degrees and business backgrounds are using publicity and marketing to launch themselves into the market. Remember the old saying, “If you snooze, you lose?” Stop snoozing!

“You have to enhance your visibility,” says Faith Hope Consolo, vice chairman, Garrick-Aug Worldwide, Ltd.

She should know. While Consolo is considered one of the most prominent retail brokers and consultants in the industry, she doesn’t rest on her laurels for a moment. To help maintain and strengthen her already formidable standing, Consolo has implemented a comprehensive public relations plan.

As part of the program, she gives at least two media interviews a day and issues at least one press release per week. Consolo is a regular contributor to many prestigious trade and consumer publications, and she lectures at numerous professional organizations throughout Manhattan.

Lisa Kirshner, who along with team partner Kacy O’Brien was the top 2002 and 2003 producer at DBL Realtors in Santa Monica, California, is an avid marketer. One of her trademarks is a professionally designed and photographed four-color brochure that she creates for every new listing. Kirshner, who has a master’s degree in business, also has a very active public relations program.

“Twenty-five to 30 percent of my total budget goes to marketing, publicity and advertising,” she says. “And it’s worth it. Ninety percent of my business is through referrals and repeat business. You have to invest if you want to maintain and grow your business.”

You can see that this is also an investment of time and effort. I allot a minimum of 20 percent of my time to public relations and marketing. If you’re not willing to dedicate yourself to this endeavor, your program won’t work.

And while many of you may turn to your broker-owners’ public relations and marketing departments for assistance, keep in mind that the executives in those departments may have hundreds of other brokers to represent. “While I oversee the overall communications program, my assistant works with DBL’s marketing and public relations departments on an ongoing basis,” says Kirshner. “This ensures that we get the individualized attention that we need-and it frees me up to do my main job.”

You may want to consider hiring your own publicist, as Consolo has done. She works with one of the top public relations firms in New York.

Referrals are a good way to find a publicist. Sit down and talk with the person, because personal chemistry is important. As Consolo says of her relationship with her public relations agency, “My goals are their goals.” Be realistic in your expectations and know how much you want to spend. This will help in the planning process.

So if you want to remain competitive, build your business and revel even more in the sweet smell of success, consider a proactive marketing and public relations program.

You may not like this news, but if you care about home real estate values you need to know: The high-flying American home inflation balloon finally is losing some of its hot air.

That is a statistical fact, even in areas where annual appreciation gains have been in the double digits and where houses still go to the highest bidder in multiple-contract contests.

The latest quarterly price inflation study compiled by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, covering more than 220 metropolitan markets, documents significant slowdowns across the country. Though the average national appreciation rate for homes is still an impressive 7.7 percent, the first quarter 2004 data reveal a cooling trend in even the hottest places.

Of the 53 metropolitan housing markets where the last full year’s price inflation was in double digits, only Las Vegas registered an annualized first-quarter rate equal to or above last year’s rate. To illustrate: The Washington, D.C., metropolitan market sizzled last year with an average appreciation of 12.65 percent. Yet the annualized first-quarter rate for 2004 was just about half that, 6.72 percent.

The same was true for high-octane New York state, where average home appreciation during the last year was 11.7 percent, but the annualized gain during the first quarter was just 2.4 percent. Florida’s 2003-04 appreciation rate of nearly 12 percent cooled off to an annualized 8 percent during the first quarter of 2004. California dropped from 14 percent to 8 percent Nationwide, annualized first-quarter price appreciation reflected a similar softening – 3.84 percent versus the 7.7 percent rate from the year-earlier period. The quarterly increase of just 0.96 percent was the lowest since 1998. Equally noteworthy is the fact that in 39 metropolitan real estate markets, home values actually declined slightly on a quarterly basis. During the last quarter of 2003 there were only three such depreciating markets, and no states.

In the first quarter of this year, by contrast, six states went slightly negative (Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska).

Looking at the country’s housing appreciation patterns from a satellite using thermal imaging, you’d see a distinctive “parentheses” pattern, with the hotter markets in red concentrated along the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, and the slower-appreciating blue and green markets generally in the middle and southern sections of the country. Other than Nevada (15 percent average gains in the last 12 months), all the high-froth housing appreciation markets are coastal: Hawaii (15.2 percent), Rhode Island (14.8 percent), California (13.9 percent), Maryland (12.9 percent), Florida (11.7 percent), New Jersey (10.9 percent), Delaware (10.4 percent), New York (10.2 percent) and Virginia (10.1 percent). The District of Columbia, treated by the office as a state for statistical purposes, came in with the fourth-highest annual rate of appreciation, at 14.3 percent. The slowest-gaining states in the last 12 months were Utah (1.95 percent), Texas (2.34 percent), Indiana and Colorado (2.8 percent) and Alabama (3.2 percent).

The good news here is that in home real estate, moderate and steady appreciation is good. Wild and crazy appreciation is bad. High double-digit appreciation rates tend to consume the markets in which they occur. Houses become unaffordable, people and businesses start to move elsewhere and the price gains fizzle out. Remember how out of control home prices got in the San Francisco Bay and Silicon Valley markets at the height of the dot-com frenzy? It’s instructive to take a look at where San Jose and San Francisco have been since then. Back in 1999 and 2000, annual home appreciation rates were rocking along in both areas in the high teens and even more than 20 percent. Last year, by contrast, the market value of the average home in San Jose rose by just 2.3 percent. In San Francisco, the rate was 5.2 percent. Both markets have undergone corrections, but there has been no bust. San Jose’s annualized first-quarter appreciation number even shows signs of an incipient revival – a 4.2 percent rate, nearly double last year’s.

The same sort of pattern – a moderate slowdown in the rate of price appreciation – is now likely in many other high-gain markets. That trend could be enhanced by expected increases in mortgage interest rates later this summer and fall, as the Federal Reserve throttles back the surging American economy. As that process unfolds, keep this in mind: Slower real estate appreciation means more people will be able to afford to buy your house. And as long as home appreciation rates stay at double or triple the underlying rate of inflation in the overall economy, you’re doing just fine.

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Ken Harney is a real estate columnist for the Washington Post.

Remember when your home was simply your castle?

That was nearly two decades ago, before Congress changed the federal tax code to make home equity your built-in bank vault – the new centerpiece of millions of Americans’ financial affairs.

An astounding one out of three homeowning households has some form of tax-deductible home-equity access account, up from one out of five just a few years ago and barely one out of 20 in the 1980s, according to banking industry estimates.

Last year, nearly $350 billion of new home-equity lines were opened, along with $90 billion in fixed-term home-equity installment loans. Home-equity line originations in 2003 were almost twice the volume of just two years earlier – a trend lenders say can only intensify as the mortgage refinancing boom dwindles to a whimper this year.

Now, a new wave of home-equity products is about to flood the home real estate market, designed to take the pain – and most of the fees – out of creating, maintaining and drawing down home-equity credit lines. Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America is preparing a national rollout this summer of what it calls the “equity maximizer.” The program charges no origination fees, title insurance premiums, appraisal fees, local government transfer taxes or recordation costs.

There are no annual charges to maintain the line, no prepayment penalties if you close it before a specific time period, no fees when you don’t draw it down.

The fee-free credit lines go from $10,000 to $250,000, with maximums tied to the homeowner’s credit score and available equity in the property, up to 100 percent of home value. On lines of $250,000 to $1 million, some fees may be required, according to the bank. Interest rates will be close to the prime rate – currently 4 percent – with discounts for homeowners who have multiple relationships with the bank, such as credit cards or checking accounts.

David Rupp, Bank of America’s product management executive, says consumer focus-group research identified annual maintenance fees, non-usage fees and prepayment penalties as the major features that turn off potential home-equity line borrowers. The same research also documented a desire by homeowners to take advantage of interest rate movements by converting portions of their floating-rate equity lines into fixed-rate mini-loans.

For example, you might have a $100,000 variable-rate credit line and lock $40,000 of it at 4.25 percent to help finance a new kitchen. The program will allow homeowners to convert a credit line into as many as three separate fixed-rate installment loans at no charge.

San Francisco-based Wells Fargo Bank apparently is conducting similar consumer research because it is rolling out a program it calls “smart fit,” which allows home-equity line borrowers to lock their line rates for three, five or seven years to take advantage of low rates and then convert to a floating interest-only rate.

Wells’ new equity line program follows its launch of its “home asset management account,” which provides primary home mortgage borrowers with a built-in “growing equity line” that automatically adjusts in amount annually based on the appreciation rate of the home.

The line not only keeps the borrower’s potential total home-equity credit – first mortgage plus credit line – at 100 percent of the home’s market value, but it also keeps moving up the available credit as the property appreciates.

Although some consumer critics worry that easy-credit programs are encouraging millions of Americans to hock their homes to the hilt, bankers argue that the vast majority of home-equity borrowers are not debt junkies and make moderate, prudent use of their lines.

Chris Reichert, executive vice president of Pulaski Bank in St. Louis, says, “There is virtually no credit risk associated with [home equity lines]. We pay for the closing costs and origination fees because we want these assets so badly.” In his bank’s case, barely one-half of 1 percent of home-equity lines or loans go delinquent.

Doreen Woo Ho, president of Wells Fargo’s consumer credit group, says, “Most prime consumers are not interested in maximizing their debt.” To the contrary, she said, “home-equity borrowers tend to be very cautious” and frequently use tax-deductible credit lines to reduce their monthly credit outlays, paying off higher-rate consumer loans and credit card balances with lower-cost home equity debt.

None of this, of course, changes the sober reality no one should ignore: If you load heavy debt onto your home and things go wrong – the real estate market goes soft, you lose your job – you could also lose your house.

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 Ken Harney is a real estate columnist for the Washington Post