The retail brokerage firm Winick Realty Group won the assignment to represent the retail condominium at the base of the formerly bankrupt, spire-like residential tower One Madison in the Flatiron District.
The family-run firm the Rockfeld Group inked a contract earlier this year to buy the condo at 20 East 23rd Street for $21.5 million from a joint venture of the Related Companies and Ziel Feldman’s HFZ Capital Group. The sale is expected to close early next year, sources close to the deal said.
The tower is located just south of Madison Square Park Between Park Avenue and Broadway, near the popular food emporium Eataly and a new Lego store at 200 Fifth Avenue, each on the west side of the park.
Like many other areas of Manhattan, the retail asking rents in the Flatiron District have increased in recent years, data from the industry trade group the Real Estate Board of New York shows. The association said in its most recent report from May that asking rents in The Neighborhood On Broadway between 14th and 23rd streets have risen over the past year by 22 percent, from $322 per foot in the spring of 2013 to $392 per foot in the spring of 2014. The report does not provide asking rents for 23rd Street.
Related and HFZ took control of the stalled luxury tower after the development was thrown into bankruptcy.
The Rockfeld condo has 4,635 square feet on the ground floor and 1,870 square feet on the lower level, as well as signage that is 18 feet high and 75 feet long. The condo is being marketed with the option to divide it into two or three stores. If in three spaces, one can be as small as 357 square feet, Winick’s Joshua Siegelman told The Real Deal. He and company president Steven Baker have the exclusive assignment, which they signed earlier this month after competing against several other firms.
Siegelman said asking rents around the park range from about $300 per square foot to $500 per foot, with smaller spaces typically taking higher rents. He declined, however, to provide an asking rent for this listing.
Siegelman viewed the signage as increasing the value of the space, giving it marketing and branding opportunities on top of the selling floor inside the building. “It is an unrivaled opportunity for [tenants] to expose themselves, to flagship themselves,” in the neighborhood, he said.
Likely types of tenants included apparel, technology, or even for the smaller space, a chocolate store, optical store or a 3-d printer.
Midtown-based Rockfeld Group, led by Steven Feldman, owns a real estate portfolio in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx that includes office and residential but is heavily concentrated in retail. Its holdings include 1 West 125th Street in Harlem, As Well 335 Broadway in Tribeca.