Former Andy Warhol nightclub sold to UBS for $35M

UBS Realty Investors has purchased the former home of Andy Warhol’s Electric Circus nightclub in the East Village for about $35 million.

The firm bought 19-23 St. Mark’s Place from Cape Advisors, according to property records. In 2003 Cape Advisors had finished developing the property, which is eight stories tall and has 41 apartments, according to the company’s website.

Recent units have rented for between $2,700 for a studio and $18,000 for a three-bedroom penthouse, according to StreetEasy.

“Cape sold the building at an aggressive sub-four cap rate, and we feel fortunate to have closed despite difficult circumstances in the market right now,” said company President David Kronman.

Representatives for UBS declined to comment.

A JLL team of Jeff Julien, Rob Hinckley, Steven Rutman and Guthrie Garvin brokered the deal for both sides.

The shift to luxury rental units was quite a change for a building that Warhol turned into “the high citadel of hippiedom” during the 1960s, according to the Village Alliance.

“As the high-flying, high-decibel Electric Circus, it combined theater, rock music, dance, lighting — and even had its own merry-go-round,” the organization wrote.

New York’s mid-market investment sales were already off to a slow start in 2020 and have taken a beating during the pandemic. The past two weeks have each just seen one deal between $10 million and $30 million: Jeffrey Lam’s $28.6 million purchase of 55-59 Chrystie Street in Chinatown and an LLC’s $18 million purchase of 177 Franklin Street in Tribeca. The week before that had no sales.