On Wooster Street just south of Houston in the hip Soho neighborhood, a new condominium is taking shape. 139 Wooster Street is a six-story luxury development with a mixture of modern minimalist design and classical features that make it fit seamlessly with the neighborhood.

The development includes two penthouses on two levels with a spiral staircase in pure white connecting the floors. All apartments appear spacious thanks to the tall 11-foot ceilings and oversized windows facing east, which bring in a lot of light and the beautiful urban street view below.

Each apartment is finished with plank flooring made out of oak flooring which, alongside the oversized windows outlined in cast iron, give this apartment a quintessential Soho feel while maintaining its sleek, modern elegance.

The development also offers a number of luxury features, such as Miele, SubZero, and Bosch appliances as well as granite countertops by Cashmere Gold and Oyster Beige marble floors in bathrooms.

Another rare luxury afforded by the units at 139 Wooster are the private balcony spaces that each unit has to itself. Combined with the garden connecting the two buildings that make up the project, the building offers plenty of tranquil outdoor space to enjoy in the warm months.

Complimenting the modern, Soho-like charm of the building are its luxury amenities, such as a 24-hour concierge, a doorman, and private health club for residents.

Apartments at 139 Wooster begin at $2.2 million and are available now. However, there are plenty of other developments in Soho, as the area is fully revived as the arts and shopping center of New York City.

Looking past the dropped jaws of tourists wandering through from Chinatown when they spot the likes of Ed Burns, Michael Imperioli, Jessica Alba and more, Tribeca is a neighborhood of wide streets with wider arms to grab any New Yorker.  Some say spring in Tribeca is best, others say the fall.   It’s good all year round but something special takes over in the spring each year.

The Tribeca Film Fest, originally founded to help the recovery efforts of the neighborhood has grown into one of the world’s top film fests.  Premiering Blockbuster hits like Spiderman 3, and finding emerging filmmakers, the ten day festival features films, talks, and street festivals that only this town can pull off.

The beauty of the neighborhood is that when an hour wait for a table next to Scorsese at Robert DeNiro’s Locande Verde scares you off, a top notch alternative is only a casual walk down the block.

Tribeca is a perfect mix of old city cobblestone streets, modern cuisine, art but not artsy, cool but not too cool, and neighborhoody but not too neighborhoody.  Could you imagine living here? You can come as you are and yes, that probably is a movie star on the treadmill next to you.

If you want to see some amazing listings in Tribeca just enter your information into the box on your right and a rock star New York real estate agent will get in touch with you ASAP!

It’s no surprise that the Seaport Museum has endured such hard times. Unlike other museums throughout the city, this one’s sole purpose is to truly be a nautical themed museum that displays historical maritime relics of New York City.
The Museum of the City of New York has always been a stable organization that hasn’t seen the types of issues the Seaport Museum has seen with budgeting. City Museum’s director Susan Henshaw Jones made a statement stating that “We assume full responsibility for its management and its budget. We have complementary missions and complementary collections. The early ideal of the Seaport Museum and the entire district was to combine the ships and the buildings in a way that educated people about New York’s great seafaring past. We are committed to that combination.”
Although the grant money would not be put towards lowering the museum’s overall debt, it will aid the museum’s operating costs. Hopefully the merging of the two museums will provide a revitalization of the Lower Manhattan landmark.

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Despite my nostalgic affections, even I cannot support the preservation of 135 Bowery.

The building, pictured above, has been endangered for a while now, and according to Curbed, the City Council will hold a public hearing to see whether the building should be designated a historical landmark and worth preserving. This is after the Landmarks Preservation Commission had already decided to protect the building back in June.

The building owner, who happens to be First American International Bank, is asking for an exemption based on “economic hardship”. It’s difficult to sympathize with the economic hardship of any bank these days, but the city council has decided to hear them out. I don’t expect them to win.

The Federal style red-and-white building was built in 1817 and was once a gambling hall. It was briefly for sale for $6.5 million, a decent price for the location. However, the interior left much to be desired, as the picture shows.

Whether the building is restored, replaced, or raised, I hope someone occupies the address soon. Just north of Bowery and Grand, the building is at the edge of the ever-dwindling Little Italy in an area that is bustling and popular, and deserving of another good tenant.

There’s no need to spend $6.5 million on a contentious abandoned building when there are hundreds of condominiums across the city for much less–If you would like to find out more simply enter your information in the box on your right and a rock star real estate agetnt will get in touch with you today.

The plan is in its earliest stages and will not be approved or denied until October. There is one major snag in the project: according to The Post, the deal would involve transforming the Robert Moses playground to the UN and allowing them to build another high rise at 39 stories tall. The new skyscraper would match the current UN building, which has caused some concern amongst Midtown East inhabitants and conservationists (mostly conservationists). While they recognize the need for more green space and love the idea of a new amenity, they don’t want it at “the cost of taking other public land”, referring to the playground. I would like to point out that the current playground is maybe a tenth the size of the proposed esplanade.

There is still a month until we know the fate of the East River, but I would predict approvals to fly through, considering that the East Midtown Coalition for Sensible Development and East End Hockey Association might have a bit of difficulty combating the arguments put forth by the UN and the inhabitants of the area who would like to see a new cycling lane and park on the East River uniting the Upper West and Upper East sides.

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One such fact that blew me away was the figures; the park took over $100 million in private donations to renovate the space, which has probably increased the property values in the area enough to raise nearly half a billion dollars in property taxes for the city. Such an increase in value demonstrates how a bit of conservation, public investment, and elbow grease can transform a neighborhood.

And it also demonstrates how there is energy in abundance to make such transformations in New York City. It is a typically NYC development: take an old piece of rusting infrastructure and transform it into a new, lush, gorgeous refuge from the urban jungle around it—all the while celebrating the urbanity of the space. Robert Hammond, one of the men who got the project off the ground and has written a story about the experience, told NPR that the project was about celebrating the past as well as creating a new green space in the city: “this was the magic we wanted to save. Like right now, we’re alone. It’s just us, up here [in] this private garden right in the middle of New York.”

Now that private garden is transforming Chelsea and the Meatpacking District along 10^th Avenue.

More work is to be done as the High Line isn’t completely finished, and I’m certain that this is just the start of a number of similar projects throughout the city. The High Line has transformed a derelict freight train line that opened in 1934 into a new park that both celebrates the historical roots of the space and creates a brand new, modern getaway for current residents.

What will be the next High Line in Manhattan? Why not come take a tour of the island for yourself with one of our agents and see for yourself. It’s easy to get in touch with them. Just enter your information into the box on your right and they will get in touch with you ASAP!

Recently, there has been a boom in rental developments throughout the city, as investors (not least of which is Toll Brothers) realize that the demand for housing is growing in Manhattan as the economy recovers and the city booms (even while the rest of the nation struggles, again confirming that NYC is a world of its own).

Savvy private investors with sufficient capital will avoid rentals because they would prefer to build equity instead of losing money on rent, so the demand for luxury properties has remained strong. Thus, it is no surprise that developer and real estate investor Harry Macklowe has filed plans to convert two properties from rentals to condominiums. The two properties are not too far from each other, at 737 Park Avenue (pictured) and 150 East 72nd Street, with sales to begin at the end of 2012 at the earliest (I expect them to be sold old by the autumn of 2013). Prices will range from $2.9 million to $18 million at the Park Avenue property; at 150 East 72nd Street, the 34 two- and three-bedroom units will go for anywhere between $3.5 million and $6 million.

Stuart Saft, who is head of Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP and who filed the plans on Macklowe’s behalf, was quoted as saying:

The expectation is that we probably will be out of the recession by then, and the economy will be booming and it will just be the right time to start selling apartments.

If successful, Macklowe will earn a huge profit. According to public records filed with the city, he purchased the prewar building on Park Avenue for $253 million in August. The quick turnaround from purchase to conversion also suggests that Macklowe expects an aggressive and profitable property market in Manhattan’s future.

However, Macklowe has made some big mistakes before; in 2008, he had to relinquish control of seven office towers in Manhattan after he was unable to refinance $7 billion of debt used to buy them.

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Richard Belzer's terrace overlooking the Hudson, now for sale alongside many other celebrity homes

The New York Daily News has just announced that ”Law & Order’s” Richard Belzer’s apartment is on the market for a low $2.9 million. The Daily News speculates that this may be because Richard Belzer and his wife are spending more time in their villa in southern France, leaving them less motivation to keep their four bedroom pied-a-terre at 60 Riverside Drive. The property is gorgeous, with a west-facing balcony overlooking the Hudson and an ensuite master bathroom, as well as traditional finishes throughout.

There seems to be a rash of celebrity homes for sale in Manhattan. Just recently, Isabella Rosellini decided to leave the city and Victoria Secret model, recent mother, and Orlando Bloom’s wife Miranda Kerr has been trying to sell her Flatiron digs for over half a year. Other celebrities are coming to the city, like Jennifer Aniston, who’s planning to make the city her primary residence after selling her Beverly Hills home.

What can explain the rush in celebrity home sales? There are a number of market factors as well as developments in the entertainment industry. For one, New York City has seen a surge of movie and television productions as the city’s rejuvenation and gentrification have made it more prominent in America’s consciousness.

More than this is the fact that filming on-site has begun to replace the Hollywood studio sets in a big way. The competition between states and countries to attract filming crews has resulted in many tax breaks for film productions all over the country and the world. With filming increasingly on site and the filming industry becoming less centralized, there’s little reason for celebrities to stay in L.A., but the cultural attractions of New York City such as Broadway will be an attraction to celebrities for a while still.

Celebrities will never forget Los Angeles, but they’ll never leave New York City either. The history, architecture, and amenities of the city are going to guarantee that celebrities come back to the city, even if we lose Richard Belzer to the French coast.

This isn’t surprising at all. Some investors have shied away from uptown, because the rest of Manhattan has seen higher rent increases than uptown, as the WSJ reports. This has kept prices from going up as much as they have in the midtown and particularly downtown areas, where demand has far outstripped supply and seems to be on track to do so for years to come.

At the same time, more recent increases in rent uptown have made it a prime investment opportunity, especially considering the fact that vacancy rates are staying low. Demand for rentals has surged so much that concessions to renters are starting to disappear, as reported by Business Week.

What makes this particularly interesting is that Business Week is reporting sluggish sales figures for co-ops and condos in the city, which directly contradicts the WSJ report and our own experience. While it is undeniable that the market slowed in 2009 and 2010, it seems that the sluggish sales are a thing of the past. The increase in rent and slowdown of new development construction has caused a severe decline in inventory that is already driving prices up in Manhattan Valley, and will continue to do so in the rest of the city.

We maintain that now is an ideal time to buy, whether it is an investment or a personal home. I personally have just purchased my own co-op in the city, because I believe so strongly in the strength of the NYC property market. Already I’m earning dividends; I am going abroad for a three-month project, and I wanted to rent out my apartment. It took less than 24 hours for me to rent my place out at the price I asked–which was exactly in the median for my neighborhood.

I cannot recommend enough buying a piece of Manhattan for your very own. If you are interested in taking a look at what is available in your price range, give Condodomain a call at 1-877-852-6636 or have a look on the website.

I liked Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, even if it had the eminently annoying Shia LaBeouf in an equally annoying do-gooder, wide-eyed innocent role that is about as realistic as a Looney Tunes skit (anyone who has spent any time on Wall Street knows that young men eager to fund alternative energy projects that will save the world are not working on Wall Street). The mantra “greed is good” took over Wall Street far too severely for exceptional innocents to be let in the club.

But I digress. The movie’s cartoonish depiction of a good young banker and the evil, selfish men of the establishment is made a tad more complex by Gekko, whose own role in the movie is what saves it (in case you haven’t seen it, I won’t spoil it for you). Needless to say, prison changed him–at least a little.

One of the best parts of the movie–besides the hyper-dramatic retelling of a severe financial crisis–was the elegant cinematic depiction of downtown Manhattan, and that includes plenty of real estate porn. The apartment shared by Shia LaBeouf’s character and his girlfriend (who just so happens to be Winnie Gekko, Gordon’s daughter) is a luxurious masterpiece, so it was bound to fetch a luxurious price when it was put on sale earlier this year. It has finally sold for $15 million, which is a bit higher than it should fetch for the area (the Flatiron district, which is one of the most convenient neighborhoods in the city, being squarely in between downtown, midtown, Chelsea, and the East Village).

Many other properties are available in the Flatiron district, and it seems that their prices just might be going up soon, so give one of our agents a call at 1-877-852-6636 or visit us at our website today!