Gaia Real Estate has purchased 90 condo units on the Upper East Side from an affiliate of The Brodsky Organization for $52.5 million.
Gaia bought the units at Bridge Tower Place, a 38-story building at 401 East 60th Street, according to the company. Gaia managing partner Danny Fishman said the purchase price – which works out to about $849 per square foot and $583,000 per unit – was attractive compared to where prices have been in recent years.
“Prices in the last few years went a little bit too high, so we were net sellers,” Fishman said. “So we just sold our condos and our buildings and so forth. Now, we think that with the market being soft in the last year, we think the prices definitely went down.”
The Brodsky Organization developed Bridge Tower Place in 1999, and it contains a total of 218 units, according to StreetEasy.
The market for blocks of unsold apartments has picked up as of late.
Earlier this year, Ziel Feldman’s HFZ Capital began shopping around a block of 45 rent-regulated apartments spread across three of the company’s Manhattan condominium conversions.
And last year, Meadow Partners bought a block of 146 condos on the Upper West Side from the Starrett Corp. for $61.3 million.
Brodsky did not respond to a request for comment. The company, along with TF Cornerstone, recently took over three development sites at Pacific Park from Greenland USA where they plan to build more than 1,000 new apartments.
The Tower Place purchase marks Gaia’s first New York City acquisition in more than three years.
Gaia has worked on multiple condo conversion projects in Manhattan before, including The Vantage at 308 East 38th Street, Nine 52 at 416 West 52nd Street and The Corinthian Collection at 330 East 38th Street. Fishman said Bridge Tower Place’s location by the Second Avenue subway made it a particularly attractive investment.