Orbach Group extends UWS buying spree with $13M deal

Neighborhood recently popular with multi-family investors

Meyer Orbach, Peter Von Der Ahe and the Upper West Side property
Meyer Orbach, Peter Von Der Ahe and the Upper West Side property

The Orbach Group has scooped up a multi-family building at 933 Amsterdam Avenue, adding to its burgeoning presence on the Upper West Side, The Real Deal has learned.

The New Jersey-based residential real estate investment firm, headed by Meyer Orbach, paid $13.1 million, or $539 per square foot, for the 24,312-square-foot property in a deal that closed yesterday, according to Peter Von Der Ahe of commercial brokerage Marcus & Millichap. Von Der Ahe facilitated the sale with colleagues Scott Edelstein, Seth Glasser and Jonathan Schwartz.

Orbach did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the deal.

The seller of the building was Pnina Realty Associates, public records show. The family-run company had owned the property for more than 50 years.

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Orbach has been on a buying spree in the neighborhood for almost a year now. The firm forked over $70 million in March to buy three six-story Apartment Buildings On West 107th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam avenues, and bought a $30 million portfolio on Amsterdam Avenue and on Cathedral Parkway last October.

Orbach is one in several multi-family investment firms targeting the Upper West Side, including Treetop Development and Tri Properties. Earlier this week, Treetop closed on the $13.6 million purchase of a 50-unit apartment building at 17-27 West 125th Street to add to its portfolio of 250 rental units along Seventh and Eighth avenues between 125th and 130th streets. The team at Marcus & Millichap also brokered that deal.

“New York is full of up-and-coming neighborhoods where real estate investors and owners can purchase well-performing apartment assets at competitive prices that immediately generate capital,” Adam Mermelstein, a principal at Treetop, said in a statement earlier this week. “The area from Manhattan’s 100th Street heading north is at the top of that list.”

The Amsterdam Avenue property, at the corner of 108th Street, has three retail stores, which all have leases that expire within 18 months. An additional 4,400 square feet of air rights were included in the deal.