Nelson Management Looks to Sell 275 South Street

Nelson Management is looking to get around $175 million for a large apartment building in the Two Bridges neighborhood.

The company, along with partners JP Morgan and L+M Fund Management, put the 256-unit property at 275 South Street up for sale, according to an offering memo.

The partnership bought the building for $115 million in 2015 as Two Bridges was beginning to transform into a luxury neighborhood with projects like Extell Development’s One Manhattan Square.

The new owners spent more than $20 million renovating the late 1970s-era building, which has about 40 percent of its units covered by the Section 8 program.

“A lot of these Mitchell-Lama [developments], there’s not a lot of money invested into amenities and curb appeal; you’re talking about the original lobbies, the original hallways, the apartments hadn’t been touched,” Nelson Management’s Robert Nelson said in 2018. “This was the perfect opportunity for us to go in and really speak to the marketplace, from an amenity standpoint, for all the different income classes we’d be servicing.”

Representatives for Nelson Management and JP Morgan did not immediately respond to requests for comment and a spokesperson for L+M declined to comment. A Newmark team led by Adam Spies and Josh King is handling the marketing process.

About 85 percent of the building’s units are rented at market rates, according to the offering memo. The property also has an Article XI tax exemption for affordable housing renovations that runs through 2055.

Part of the marketing pitch is the relative stability of the market-rate rents, along with the growing appeal of the nearby area. The marketing materials point to Extell’s building and Howard Hughes’ 250 Water Street nearby in the South Street Seaport district as examples of new developments transforming the area.