Atlas Capital Snaps Up East Village Rental Building

The former “Red Square” building in the East Village has a new owner.

Atlas Capital Group snapped up the multifamily rental building at 250 East Houston Street for $112 million, The Real Deal has learned. Dermot Company and Rockwood Capital put the 13-story, 130-unit property on the market this fall.

The property is perhaps best known for its former life as the “Red Square” building. Developed in the early 1990s by Michael Shaoul and Michael Rosen, the building once featured an 18-foot statue of Vladimir Lenin perched atop the roof — a nod, Rosen once told The New York Times, to the neighborhood’s leftist political leanings.

That statue came down in 2016, just before Dermot and Rockwood acquired the property for about $105 million. The new owners refaced the building’s red brick facade in white and invested roughly $20 million in capital improvements, according to marketing materials from JLL, where a team led by Rob Hinckley and Jeff Julien brokered the sale.

The acquisition marks another step in Atlas’ New York City expansion. The investment and development firm, founded in 2006 by Jeffrey Goldberger and Andrew Cohen, recently made preferred equity investments in the purchase and pre-development of 175 Third Street and 205 Montague Street in Brooklyn and is co-developing the high-profile 80 Clarkson Street along with a senior affordable housing complex at 570 Washington Street in Manhattan.

The Houston Street building is packed with perks aimed at the neighborhood’s young professionals, from a rooftop and landscaped courtyards to an athletic club and tenant lounge. Roughly three-quarters of the apartments feature private balconies. The building is fully leased, according to StreetEasy.

Atlas declined to comment. Representatives for Dermot and Rockwood could not immediately be reached for comment.