Latest New School Construction Update

NEW YORK CITY-DHA Capital LLC and its co-development partner Continental Properties have purchased 12 E. 13th St. in Manhattan. The property was sold for $32 million, or more than $700 per square foot. ABS Partners represented the sellers.

Hertz Rental Car previously occupied the ground floor while the remainder of the building, which spans 45,032 square feet of space, was being used as a parking garage. The new owners plan to turn the structure into upscale condominiums and will likely create a mix of full-floor homes and duplexes, along with retail facilities, according to a release.

“This is a highly desirable location where we intend to create large, super-luxury homes which will appeal to discriminating buyers,” says Steven Fisch, managing partner at Continental Properties, in the release.

”These types of homes are in very strong demand but short supply, particularly downtown,” adds Dan Hollander, managing principal of DHA. The team has engaged Cetra/Ruddy architects to design the conversion, which will not enlarge the building but will add several stories by demolishing part of the rear portion.

Located on the southern side of East 13th Street, between University Place and Fifth Avenue, the property is close to Union Square. A similar building that was a parking garage at 66 East 11th Street was recently converted into a residential building offering luxury condos.

Odell Real Estate represented the buyer. Hertz had vacated the building as its lease expired this past fall. The move allowed the building to be sold vacant, eliminating the uncertainty of a holdover tenant for potential buyers.

Constructed in 1930 of brick, steel, and concrete, the building was most likely used as a horse stable in addition to a parking garage for cars, as evidenced by heating coils throughout the building, according to ABS director Adam Maxson in a separate release. The building also features two large car elevators.

Recent construction activity in the Greenwich Village area helped create a strong demand for the building from a wide range of buyers that included both small local investors and large international investment groups, Maxson says in the release. The New School is currently constructing a 375,000-square-foot building just across the street and is scheduled to open in the fall of 2013. Also, a high-end 113-room boutique hotel, the Jade Hotel, is being built on West 13th Street.

The seller was very happy with the purchase price, according to a press release issued by ABS. “The ABS team performed a stellar job navigating this complex transaction from start to finish,” says Darren Postel, one of the sellers, in the release. “ABS coordinated with a broad range of buyers to get this disposition executed. I could not be happier with the resulting sale at such an impressive number.”

This is the latest in a series of deals for DHA Capital. The firm is in pre-development of a 300-unit rental property on Manhattan’s West Side. At 53 Pitt St. in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, DHA created and is now marketing 14 rental lofts. In Brooklyn, DHA purchased a 200,000-square-foot development site at 88 Richardson St. The property, which was approved for 230 rental units, was sold by DHA in July of 2012. The firm also acquired and sold a stalled luxury co-op in Harlem for repositioning as a rental.

Exciting new for the neighborhood that proves that the 14th St. shareholders live in an important building: our neighbor at number 22, namely the Duane Reade building, has been landmarked by the city for its historical significance. This action protects it in perpetuity. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation gives us this historical background:

“The Baumann Brothers Furniture and Carpets Store was built in 1880-81 for James McCreery (1826- 1903), a well-known textiles merchant of Scottish descent. It was designed by the architectural firm of D. & J. Jardine, whose principals, David and John Jardine, were brothers also of Scottish birth. One of the more prominent, prolific, and versatile New York firms in the late-nineteenth century, D. & J. Jardine executed designs for a wide variety of building types, including a number of notable cast-iron fronts, in contemporary styles. The wide cast-iron front facade of the Baumann Brothers store is one of the firm’s and one of the city’s most inventive, unusual, and ornamental. Built toward the end of the heyday of cast-iron fronts in New York and the flourishing creativity in that material, the Baumann Brothers store is also a signal achievement of Aesthetic Movement design. An amalgam of ornamental influences, including neo-Classical, neo-Grec, and Queen Anne styles, is embraced to achieve a decorative overall composition. Another designed, though simpler, facade on 13th Street is clad in brick and stone with a cast-iron ground story. The building’s prime location was in the midst of Manhattan’s primary retail shopping district, which included 14th Street, Union Square, and Ladies’ Mile. From 1881 to 1897, it housed Baumann Brothers, a furniture-manufacturing company established c. 1870 by Albert and Ludwig Baumann, Bohemian Jewish immigrants. By 1884, the firm occupied the entire structure and billed itself as “the largest and most complete furnishing establishment in America.” A painted sign advertising Baumann Brothers is still visible on the building’s western wall. For eight decades, the ground story contained 5-10-and-25-cent stores, beginning with the fourth Woolworth store in Manhattan (1900-28), acclaimed at its opening “the largest ten-cent store in the world.” This space was later a store for F. & W. Grand, H.L. Green, and McCrory. The upper stories were leased for over eight decades for show rooms and manufacturing by various firms related to the textile and sporting goods industries, as well as a gymnasium and classrooms for the Delehanty Institute (1930-63), which trained candidates of the Police and Fire Departments. The building currently contains a drugstore, while the upper stories are used as an annex to the Parsons School of Design.”

People often complain that Whole Foods is too expensive, but did you know they offer plenty of decent coupons?

P.F. Chang’s has finally opened on the corner of University and 13th, golden horse included. However, Eater.com hates it. A lot.

Delicious Korean gastropub Barn Joo has relocated from a few blocks up Broadway to Union Square West and the old Heartland Brewery site. Try it out. Very tasty.