Two multifamily properties near Columbia University’s new 17-acre Manhattanville campus have sold for $15 million, or $384,615 per unit, brokers on the sale told The Real Deal.
The West Harlem buildings, at 556-562 West 126th Street, have 39 apartments between them, including 36 four-bedroom units. The rare four-bedrooms are sure to lure college students when the new Columbia facilities, slated for completion in 2016, arrive.
The seller, Jerry Salama’s New York Emerging Neighborhood Fund, was looking to free up cash, according to Victor Sozio of Ariel Property Advisors, who represented both sides in the deal. The buyer was Manhattan-based property management firm BCB Properties, he confirmed to TRD.
The six-story buildings last changed hands in 2003, when property manager Prana Partners sold it to Salama for $2.13 million, according to city records.
Sozio represented both buyer and seller with his Ariel colleagues Shimon Shkury, Michael Tortorici and Jesse Deutch.
“It was a strategic disposition,” Sozio said of the seller’s motivation to unload the properties. “They said that this specific building was something they could do without in the portfolio, so they decided to monetize that. They had a ton of equity locked up in this deal.”
Salama and a press spokesman for BCB Properties did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The buyer chose the buildings, at Broadway, due to the property’s proximity to Columbia’s new campus, which should allow it “to increase rents in the near future.”