Five years later, recession-hit LIC condo the View sells out

One recession, three exclusive brokers and one recovery later, the View, the 184-unit high-rise condominium that helped reposition Long Island City, Queens as a high-end residential area, has sold out, The Real Deal has learned.

The amenity-laden building, at 4630 Center Boulevard on Long Island City’s waterfront, first hit the market in 2008. At the time, before the split between different sections of Elghanayan real estate family, Rockrose Development was the sponsor.

“In the beginning, sales were [at] about $1,000 per-square-foot,” said Eric Benaim, founder of residential brokerage Modern Spaces, which last marketed the units. But as the recession quickly cut into sales and prices, which fell as low as $700 in 2009 and 2010 when NestSeekers ran the show (Cantor Pecorella initially helped market the condos, but only as a consultant, Cantor principal Richard Pecorella told TRD).

The building started renting out units as the recession accelerated, having hit the market at perhaps the worst time in the last decade. “It has been a long journey,” Benaim said.

NestSeekers’ Silvette Julian, who headed up marketing efforts for the firm when they represented the View, claimed that her team sold “the majority of units,” at the building, but a Modern Spaces representative retorted that the building was 57 percent sold when the firm took over.

In 2011, TF Cornerstone (one half of the Elghanayan family, which took ownership of the building in the well-publicized but decidedly amicable split) ditched NestSeekers for Modern Spaces. The brokerage achieved prices between $1,100 and $1,200 per square foot, Benaim said, as the market brightened.

Indeed, StreetEasy shows the average price per square foot for closed sales at the tower overlooking the East River was $1,067 in the last six months.

The six resales in the building currently on the market are asking an average of $1,130, StreetEasy shows. And last year, a duplex penthouse at the View sold for $3.1 million – the most expensive condo ever sold in Queens.

The building will soon have luxurious company in Long Island City as well. TF Cornerstone is about to launch marketing at luxe rental building 46-10 Center Boulevard and leasing at the Tsilo Group’s 66-unit the Icon 52 kicked off this month.

“I think the future is bright for Long Island City,” Pecorella said.

And Hunter Point South, a hulking multi-use project with affordable housing will begin construction soon, according to published reports.

“I think this building … pretty much set the standard and was a helping hand in raising the prices in the rest of the neighborhood,” said Benaim, whose firm handles leasing and sales at many Long Island City developments. “Developers [there] should thank the builders of the View.”