TRENDING
Blesso, Ardency convert West Village townhouses back to single-family
In the mid-1800s, the
Now the cycle has come full circle, as affluent families pay top dollar for
Blesso Properties and Ardency Partners are gutting a total of five
Andrew Brown, an Ardency partner, said that while demand is strong, many developers have shied away from such costly small-scale projects. Financing has been difficult, he said.
“A lot of people think this is too small,” Brown said. “A lot of banks think that you are crazy for buying a shell.”
Blesso’s three projects are on Jane and Washington streets, while Ardency is working on
In the
Owen Wright, a Blesso vice president, said the projects will be finished by December and will start sales in January. Interest has been strong, he said.
The developers said that potential buyers are mainly financial services executives looking for a single-family home closer to the Financial District than uptown.
Wright said that a single-family home would provide a better return.
“It’s the highest dollar per square foot we could have gotten,” Wright said. “We could have kept them as multifamily, but we would have seen 30 to 40 percent less per foot.”
A federal-style brick six-bedroom townhouse at
“They are so few and far between that when you get a single-family there, you sell it at a premium,” said David Anderson, a Brown Harris Stevens agent who represents the seller. “Most houses had all the original details and charm ripped out” when they were converted to multi-family or back to single-family, he said.
A modern interior is no barrier to a high sales price though. A French art collector who spent three years rebuilding a 1905 carriage house at
“His wife said, ‘you are crazy,’ because it was in really bad shape,” said the seller’s agent, Martine Capdevielle of Mercedes Berk. “But now it’s an exceptional property in the core of the
At