Apartment sales quietly resumed at the Azure Condominium on East 91st Street last month.
According to Brown Harris Stevens, which is marketing the condos, the sales office reopened on June 14, two weeks after a crane collapse at the building killed two construction workers and forced a shutdown.
Luis Vasquez, Brown Harris Stevens’ director of sales, said, “Our momentum is back to where it was before the accident.”
Note: Correction appended
While Vasquez declined to say how many apartments have been sold in the building in total, it appears that 17 units have gone into contract since sales started at the Azure in January, according to listings data available to brokers.
While that data, which was provided to The Real Deal by a broker unaffiliated with the building, doesn’t show any units going into contract since the May 30 collapse, Vasquez said they have, in fact, signed some agreements since reopening the sales office.
He also maintained that prices in the 34-story tower, which has been forced to halt construction, are going up — not down.
Still, the challenge of selling units in one of the buildings at the center of the city’s construction safety crisis is indisputable, if not because of the stigma, then because of construction delays.
Sofia Kim, vice president of research at StreetEasy, noted that the Azure cannot close on any apartments without a temporary certificate of occupancy, which it does not yet have.
That certificate will inevitably be delayed because there is a stop-work order on the site due to the crash, the second fatal crane accident this year. The other crane accident, which killed seven people, was in Turtle Bay at 303 East 51st Street.
Vasquez said several buyers have made inquiries about apartments in the Azure since the accident. Some were aware of the fatal crane collapse, but they had not connected the event to the Azure. He said his office has been “very up-front” in letting them know.
One broker, who asked not to be identified, said delays at the Azure and problems related to the crane collapse could give potential buyers leverage in bargaining on price.
However, others disagreed. “I don’t think that a crane accident would be a contributing factor to being able to negotiate a lower price,” said Lala Wang, president of BrokersNYC, a listings service. She also noted that with construction costs at about $700 a square foot in New York City, there is little bargaining room for a developer to provide steep discounts.
Vasquez said the developer hopes to turn some units that were originally slated as one- and two-bedrooms into three- and four-bedroom apartments to capitalize on the growing demand for larger, family-sized apartments on the Upper East Side.
That decision, which will bring the number of units in the building down from the planned 128 to less than 100, was made prior to the crane collapse, he said. He also noted that the building has already made price increase addendums to the Azure’s larger units, and submitted them to the state attorney general’s office for review.
According to a broker, 17 of the 27 units currently posted for the Azure have been taken off the database, while 10 are still posted as available.
The broker said when listings are taken off the database it often means they are in contract. Among those that appear to be in contract is a five-bedroom, 2,867-square-foot unit listed for $5 million and a four-bedroom listed for $3.7 million.
It is unclear whether the other units removed from the listings database were sold or taken off by the developer for another reason, perhaps to be combined into larger apartments.
While sales can go forward, construction is in limbo.
The building will not meet its original June 2009 target completion date, Vasquez said. The stop-work order that was still in effect at press time has no lift date, and neither Brown Harris Stevens nor the developer, Leon D. DeMatteis Corporation, have the power to assure potential buyers when the project will be finished.
Vasquez said he did not think that construction, which had reached the 14th floor of the 34-floor tower, would be “materially delayed.” But, he conceded that until the investigation by the city’s Department of Buildings and the city’s Department of Investigations is complete, there was little way to know for sure.Still, he predicted that the crane accident and the resulting delay would not have a significant impact on sales.
“There is limited product on the Upper East Side in terms of new construction, and that is what we have on our side,” he noted.
Vasquez said the Azure is “affordable” compared to other Upper East Side developments. He said the Azure’s average price per square foot is $1,100 to $1,250, compared to the Lucida’s $2,000 to $2,300, and the Laurel’s $1,700 to $1,900 cost.
But one broker, who asked not to be named, noted that the differential has a lot to do with the Azure’s location, on the corner of 91st Street and First Avenue, which is far east and further from mass transit. The broker questioned whether the Azure would have to offer a better commission to buyer brokers, perhaps in the 4 percent to 6 percent range, to compete.
In addition, the broker noted that the Lucida is a higher-quality product.
“Discounts will come on the one- and two-bedrooms,” the broker said.
Gea Elika, a buyer’s broker who runs his own company and lists the Azure on his Web site, called it a “smart move,” for the Azure to keep prices down. “Properties like the Azure will open up the mid-market,” Elika said.
The Azure was one of the last buildings in the neighborhood to qualify for 421-a tax abatements, which means it was able to set prices slightly lower than it would have otherwise.
Also, it may be better-positioned than the building at the site of the other crane collapse, despite the fact that the same company, New York Crane and Equipment, was involved in both accidents.
According to published reports, the 51st Street building was in violation of 28 zoning regulations; the site’s permit was revoked.
A spokesman for developer James Kennelly could not provide any specifics or say whether sales were going forward on the planned 40-story building.
The office of Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau has opened a criminal investigation into that accident.