Chinese developer CL Investment Group pulled the plug last month on a $300.2 million luxury condo conversion of the United Charities office building at 287 Park Avenue South in the Flatiron District, records show. The company will instead keep the building commercial and will announce a renovation and repositioning plan in the the near future, a spokesperson for CL Investment told The Real Deal.
The now-dropped 40-unit condominium offering plan, first filed with the New York state Attorney General’s office more than a year ago, called for luxury residential apartments averaging somewhere in the neighborhood of $7 million apiece. A penthouse was expected to list for a whopping $17.5 million, a sum topped by only three apartments currently listed in the Flatiron neighborhood, according to StreetEasy.
The developer had also applied for permits to nearly double the height of the 19th-century building with an eight-story addition. Amenities in the building would have included a swimming pool and rooftop terrace.
CL Investment’s conversion project was one of a crop of new residential developments coming online from the Beijing-based developer formerly known as Cheerland, its first development ventures into the New York market.
A total abandoning of major condominium plans is not uncommon, and so far this this year developers shelved nine plans with sellouts of over $100 million, a review of AG records shows.
The biggest plan-canning transpired in April, when developer Chetrit Group [TRDataCustom] and Clipper Equity abandoned their $1.9 billion offering for the conversion of the Sony Building, ultimately selling the office property to Saudi investor Olayan Group for a more than $1.3 billion sum. Many observers cited the softening luxury condo market as a motivating factor.