The Flatiron Building is going residential.
The Brodsky Organization has bought a stake in the storied landmark and is teaming up with the owners to convert it into apartments, the partners announced Thursday.
Brodsky, one of New York’s dynastic real estate families, will oversee the conversion of the 120-year-old building — most likely into condos rather than rentals — with the Sorgente Group. It’s the latest turn in a saga that has enveloped one of the city’s icons.
The property went up for auction in the spring after its owners — which included Jeff Gural’s GFP Real Estate, the Sorgente Group, ABS Partners and investor Nathan Silverstein — couldn’t agree what to do with the vacant office building.
The auction turned into a circus when then-unknown investor named Jacob Garlick came out of nowhere to produce the winning bid at $190 million, only to fail to put down the required deposit. That resulted in a new auction, which Gural’s group won with a bid of $161 million.
The owners then sought a new investor to come in and finance the conversion. A Newmark team of Adam Spies, Doug Harmon and Adam Doneger marketed the property for sale and brokered the deal with Brodsky.
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Gural, speaking at the conclusion of the May auction, said he expected it to cost $100 million to convert the property into residential condos.
“I think I got to talk to my partners and come up with a plan. I would think either make half the building residential and half office or all residential,” he said at the time. “We got to figure it out.”
The exact plans for the building, which will require approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission, are not entirely clear. Marketing materials for the property show that it could be converted entirely to residential, or half residential with the other half remaining either office or going to hotel use.
Brodsky, meanwhile, has been busy developing other residential properties.
The company recently teamed up with Avery Hall Investments to develop a 350-unit building in Gowanus. Brodsky is also developing a pair of rental buildings at the Pacific Park megaproject.
The firm traces its roots to 1947, when Nathan Brodsky began rehabilitating brownstones and apartment buildings in Greenwich Village. That work was carried on by a second generation (Daniel Brodsky) and a third (Dean Amro, Alexander Brodsky and Thomas Brodsky).