In the rush to brand yet another patch of Manhattan real estate, neighborhood-coining brokers have dubbed a heretofore indistinct section of Madison Avenue just north of the Flatiron Building “Madison Square Park North.”
A series of residential developments are in the works for Madison Avenue stretching from 50 Madison Avenue, a residential conversion at the northern edge of Madison Square Park, all the way to 34th Street, and they’ll bring a new moniker to the area. Whether it sticks is another issue.
Thankfully foregoing the acronym MaSquaPaNo, Andrew Heiberger, the founder and CEO of Buttonwood Real Estate, got the ball rolling on Madison Square Park North.
“It will be a really great, really hip neighborhood,” said Heiberger. “This area is a hidden gem.”
According to Heiberger, the gem’s most brilliant facet will be 158 Madison Avenue, being developed by Thorwood Real Estate, a joint venture between Buttonwood and Thor Equities. It will include construction of a new building with 50 luxury condominiums and retail space on a 7,500-squarefoot
lot.
Heiberger claims Madison Square Park North is “above any real estate bubble.”
“Any other park in the city, something directly on the park is $2,000 plus a foot,” he said. “There’s such great opportunity here, because you can buy for $1,300 or $1,400 a foot. It’s a bargain. This neighborhood is going to happen regardless of the bubble.”
Thorwood’s project has no park frontage, and is several blocks north of any greenery at 32nd Street.
There are a slew of other residential developments in the planning or rumor stages that could round out the area renaissance. Just north of the park is 60 Madison Avenue, a commercial building with 169,000 square feet of commercial space rumored to be slated for conversion to condos, according to Heiberger.
The Moinian Group, which owns the building, did not respond to requests for information on the site.
Another development, 76 Madison Avenue, has just hit the market. The boutique conversion has 32 units, all of them facing Madison or 28th Street and bathed in natural light, said Karen Mansour, director of sales and marketing for Prudential Douglas Elliman’s development marketing group.
Developers are negotiating a contract with a private chef to provide room service and private catering. Also, residents will get a gym membership, most likely at The Gym, a fitness center at 11 East 26th Street.
Mansour didn’t anticipate any difficulty attracting buyers to the neighborhood, which has a handful of excellent restaurants, most notably Danny Meyer’s Eleven Madison Park and Tabla, and is about to get one more. The Beaux Arts-style Carlton on Madison at 22 East 29th Street will become the new home this fall of Country, a restaurant by Geoffrey Zakarian, founder of Town.
“The neighborhood is about to explode,” Mansour said. “There’s a lot of press on it lately, which is very exciting. We have over 200 names on the wait list, and the sign’s only been up a few weeks.”
She said 76 Madison has two or three apartments per floor, which range from one-bedrooms at about 800 square feet to three-bedrooms and a home office at about 2,300 square feet. Some larger units have private elevator service. The properties will most likely hit the market at $1,100 a square foot.
“We’ll probably achieve a higher number than that,” Mansour said.
Madison Avenue north of the park already has some residential spaces. There are several rental buildings, including 80 Madison, 118 Madison and a luxury rental at 121 Madison, Heiberger said. But it has less residential than other avenues, and is better known for its commercial and retail. That leaves a lot of opportunity for residential conversions, said Elizabeth Butler, sales coordinator for Mark David & Company, whose offices are nearby.
“I think it’s ripe for development,” she said. “This is the area where we’re going to see development taking place a lot in the next couple of years.”
Currently, 105 Madison Avenue at 29th Street is on the market, and the 257,000-
square-foot commercial building is slated to become a “huge” condo conversion, Heiberger
said.
Development around Madison Square Park itself, previously reported in The Real Deal, has helped spur the growth northward. In the most recent developments around the park, the MetLife Tower at One Madison Avenue is going condo after it was sold in April, to be converted by SL Green Realty Corp. and a partner.
Nearby, the Grand Madison at 225 Fifth Avenue, once the New York Giftware Building, reported strong sales after hitting the market in April.
Butler said she sold one condo unit at 225 Fifth and bought one for herself for investment. Penthouses are going for $4.8 million.