The great hulking mass of 11 Spring Street couldn’t keep a famous press scion, but it never stopped being a communications hub after Lachlan Murdoch headed down under.
After the former New York Post publisher headed back to Australia, the iconic Nolita property continued to attract the attention of graffiti artists, whose less well-circulated bulletins tagged the former 1888-vintage horse stable and created a vibrant tableau that wrapped around the building and turned it into a landmark that attracted tourists from around the world.
The five-story, 15,000-square-foot building was sold in late 2006 to Elias Cummings Development, which paid $12 million for the property. The developer plans to build three luxury residences on the site. By comparison, a nearby 40,000-square-foot mixed-use assemblage with four stories on Hester and Bowery went for $18 million in May 2006; a 22,500-square-foot, five-story residential building on East Houston and Bowery with an elevator sold for $25 million in February 2007.
The spooky-looking 11 Spring, which seemed more at home in a Charles Addams cartoon than the hip neighborhood in which it loomed, became Murdoch’s in 2003. The elder son of News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch paid $5.25 million to owner John Simpson, a mechanical inventor who used to place candles in the windows every night — the only indication to locals that anyone occupied the space at all.
Murdoch started renovations on the house in the fall of 2004, but then left for Australia after a high-profile dispute with his father. The building went back on the market with Corcoran for $14.75 million.
Though developers Bill Elias and Caroline Cummings won’t reveal unit prices yet, Deborah Grubman of Corcoran, who handled the sale, expects the units to capitalize on rising prices in the neighborhood.
Andy Gerringer, a managing director at Prudential Douglas Elliman, expects the units to fetch between $1,300 and $1,500 per square foot. One of his own recent developments, 195 Bowery, sold units for approximately $1,100 per square foot in early 2005 and sells for $1,250 now.
“That’s a great market,” Gerringer said. “It’s not in prime Soho, where Soho has become mall-ish. This is like how Soho was years ago: grittier, not as busy, with appeal to a lot of people.”
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, to open soon on the Bowery, should increase the draw to the area, Gerringer added.
The area includes one of Downtown’s priciest condos, 40 Bond Street, where a 1,269-square-foot one-bedroom runs between $3 and $4 million — up to $3,000 a square foot — and a 2,874-square-foot townhouse runs between $7.7 and $10.5 million.
The three units of 11 Spring will consist of a three-story townhouse with three bedrooms, four-and-a-half bathrooms and a garage; a two-bedroom, two-and-a-half bathroom full-floor apartment; and a three-story penthouse with three bedrooms, three-and-a-half bathrooms and a roof deck.
Notable features of the building include a large bay window in the lobby, an elevator, the classic façde of the original building and six- to seven-foot windows, which run the full 90 feet of the Elizabeth Street wall, “providing more windows than traditional lofts,” Elias said.
“How you live in a space is really integral to how we work. We approach a project from an aesthetic point of view,” said Elias, a Palm Beach veteran with a graying goatee.
Cummings, who comes across as all-business with a touch of old-school East Village, added, “It’s almost like a piece of art itself, designing a space. I want to be proud of what I put my name on.”
The duo will soon complete a $24 million renovation of a landmark Georgian home in Palm Beach, but they have not planned any future developments for New York City. After the completion of 11 Spring Street, they hope to continue developing unique projects.
“We just want to finish this one,” said Elias, “and then there will be something else that presents itself.”