Acuity Capital buys Washington Heights rental for $21M

Acuity Capital Partners picked up a six-story Washington Heights rental building from Crest Realties and Quantum Equities for $20.8 million, or $314 per square foot, sources told The Real Deal.

Crest and Quantum had pulled the 66,240-square-foot elevator building at 440-450 Audubon Avenue out of foreclosure at a 2012 auction in a $7.8 million deal. The sale on Thursday marked a nearly three-fold increase in value for the property.

The building, located in Washington Heights’ Hudson Heights subsection, has 68 rental apartments and three retail spaces. The apartments are fully rent-stabilized.

Cignature Realty Associates’ Peter Vanderpool represented both sides in the deal.

Acuity Capital, a Midtown-based real estate investment firm, has been pushing to omit an affordable housing component at its 66-unit Chelsea residential project at 42 West 18thStreet. The firm even offered to donate 25 percent of its profits from six of the units toward building affordable housing elsewhere in the city. In September, City Council member Corey Johnson recommended Acuity’s building application be approved by the Council.

Montreal-based Crest and Manhattan-based Quantum are both active mid-market multifamily buyers in Upper Manhattan. In July, Crest paid $39 million for a nine-story Carnegie Hill rental building at 118 East 93rd Street.