Copperline Buys Rye Apartment Building for $50M

The price was right for the Schlesinger family to make a multifamily buy in Rye.

An affiliate of Jason, Adam and Bobby Schlesinger’s South Florida-based Copperline Partners paid $50.2 million for the Highlands at Rye, a 109-unit apartment complex at 131 Purchase Street in the Westchester County city, the Westchester & Fairfield County Business Journals reported. The seller was White Plains-based K5 Equities.

The property was recently renovated and includes commercial space on the ground floor, plus 42 parking spots. The building spans 105,000 square feet, according to marketing materials, breaking the sale down to roughly $478 per square foot or about $461,000 per unit.

The “garden courtyard apartment” community features layouts ranging from studios to three-bedroom units; a one-bedroom apartment listed on the property’s website starts at $2,475 per month. Amenities include a fitness center and yoga studio; a dog wash and bike repair station are expected to be added soon.

Though headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida, Copperline’s portfolio includes several multifamily assets in New York City and its surrounding suburbs, according to its website.

K5, run by father-and-son duo Steven and Michael Kessner, is a private equity real estate investment firm with a portfolio that once included several East Harlem apartment buildings but now primarily spans Westchester and Fairfield counties and the Bronx.

In 2019, the firm purchased the Green Dolphin Apartments in New Rochelle from Pan Am Equities for $32 million.

Steven’s son and Michael’s brother, Adam Kessner, who owns Milton Point Realty Advisors, arranged the sale of the Rye property to Copperline.

Last year, Copperline struck a deal closer to home, paying $9.8 million in a bankruptcy sale for a former timeshare resort on Palm Beach’s waterfront.

Some of Westchester County’s most prominent cities have seen a boom in multifamily development in recent years, predating Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push to bring more apartments to the suburbs. Among the cities seeing a dramatic rise in multifamily development are White Plains, New Rochelle and Yonkers.

— Holden Walter-Warner