Workers yesterday stripped away the Liberty Toye signage from the sales office with tinted glass at 44 Avenue B as rumors circulated that developer Ben Shaoul's Magnum Real Estate sold the nursing home-turned-residential building down the block.
The Real Deal reported yesterday that Shaoul was in contract to sell the condo conversion at Fifth Street and Avenue B for $85 million. The 81-unit building hit the sales market — bitcoin accepted! — as condos back in November, complete with a new name (Liberty Toye taking over for Bloom 62) and paint job.
Per The Real Deal:
Sources said Magnum now plans to withdraw the offering plan from the New York state Attorney General’s office and return deposits to buyers who’ve gone into contract. The property is expected to continue to operate as a rental, sources said.
At least 14 units are in contract, according to StreetEasy, ranging from a studio last asking $675,000 to a two-bedroom that was asking $1.55 million.
So this will apparently end Shaoul's nearly seven tumultuous years owning the former Cabrini Nursing Center, which shut down in June 2012. The 240-bed center — sponsored by the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus — provided health care for low-income elderly residents in the East Village. Shaoul reportedly paid $25 million for the property and closed down Cabrini.
[Photo from 2014]
Apartments at the new Bloom 62 — "the right place to plant your roots" — arrived in the spring of 2013, with prices topping out at $7,600 for a four-bedroom apartment. Despite the upgrades, some people thought that the units still looked like nursing home rooms, though with better lighting.
Under Shaoul's watch, the rental building gained a reputation for its rooftop DJ parties that annoyed neighbors. Shaoul finally cracked down on the ragers in the summer of 2015.
Shaoul attempted to sell the building several times — $72 million in 2014 ... and $80 million in 2015.
[April 2018]
Previously on EV Grieve:
Claim: Ben Shaoul is the new owner of Cabrini nursing home, will convert to condos
Report: Local politicians reach out to Ben Shaoul as re-sale of the Cabrini Nursing Center seems likely
More details on Cabrini's closing announcement
A look at the 'Hip young crowd planting roots at Bloom 62'
Have you heard the rooftop parties at Ben Shaoul's Bloom 62? (52 comments)
Ben Shaoul looks to make a whole lot of money converting nursing home into high-end housing
Ben Shaoul is selling Bloom 62 for $73 million — all cash!
1st signs of Ben Shaoul's Bloom 62 going condo on Avenue B?
More details on Ben Shaoul's condo conversion Liberty Toye, where you can buy with bitcoins
So the nabe lost a nursing home, and Shaoul walks away with $60 million in his pocket for having made that happen.
ReplyDeleteThe tired, the poor, the huddled masses can all go fuck off elsewhere, apparently.
ReplyDeleteWhat a shitshow! Thanks for helping us lose a nursing home in exchange for a failed money grab, the world is a better place. As I have been saying for the past 1-2 years, Ben Shaoul’s crappy condo conversions of small rental apartments just aren't working. The buildings are boring and the apartments are too small, and the names he slaps on these buildings are ridiculous. Liberty Toye? The Illumina? Coda? Who is naming these condos, a random building name generator? His conversion of the Coda on 23rd and 1st is still mostly empty; a once completely full rental building is mostly dark at night two years after the conversion. It turns out that you can't just convert a normal apartment into a condo and call it a condo; buyers are much smarter than he thinks.
ReplyDeletewow there actually were people putting a deposit down on an apartment here? I wonder if those people actual saw these apartments in person or bought from photos?
ReplyDeleteThe Chinese investor money that real estate developers have been relyingon is obviously drying up, plus the new Federal tax laws saw the lowest rate of sales in the first quarter and the largest drop in Manhattan sales in nine years. The bubble may not have burst yet but it is quickly deflating.
ReplyDeleteAlso just saw this article on how sales have stalled in Trump Tower and also in Manhattan luxury real estate in general:
Condo Sales Stall at Trump Tower
The decline at President Trump’s flagship residence and corporate headquarters comes amid a broader drop in Manhattan transactions
At Trump Tower, the President’s flagship Fifth Avenue residence and corporate headquarters, condominium sales have slowed sharply since last fall amid a broader slump in Manhattan transactions.
The building has logged just one sale this year and two since last September, both one-bedroom apartments on lower floors that sold for less than other recent sales of similar units in the tower. Larger, more expensive listings have been lingering.
By comparison, in the first four months of 2017 and 2016 there were three sales during each of those periods. Trump Tower has 231 residential apartments, beginning on the 30th floor of the mixed-use building.
Now, there is evidence of significant price declines within some “lines” of specific units in the tower that have the same layout from floor to floor.
These include the most recent sale in the “H-line,” where prices have been sliding, sale by sale, on the lower floors of the building. Some more expensive lines, however, haven’t shown this pattern because brokers say more affluent owners are less likely to be in a rush to sell. The last two-bedroom sale closed in March 2017, property records show.
This pattern of falling real-estate values came into focus last month after a fire in a 50th floor apartment at Trump Tower killed a 67-year old art dealer, Todd Brassner.
Mr. Brassner had filed for bankruptcy protection in 2015 to stave off a foreclosure on the unit. In a bankruptcy filing he valued his apartment, unit 50C, with a partial Central Park view, at $2.5 million.
In February 2016, while Mr. Trump was on the campaign trail, a similar apartment on a higher floor sold for $3 million. But that August, a “C-line” unit on the 42nd floor sold for $2 million, and last December a unit on the 31st floor changed hands for $1.8 million. That was the lowest on that line since 2010.
These types think only about what the neighborhood can do for them, not what they could do for the neighborhood. As 9:46 noted, we lost a nursing home for this guy to pocket some $60 million. Laws need to be changed to prevent this. If anyone, the city should have pocketed these $60 million to support nursing homes and schools, to sustain neighborhoods, to get back our Charas/ElBohio cultural center etc...
ReplyDeleteCoda at 23rd Street & First Avenue is the building that used to have the East Side Diner and Bolton's Clothing Store. When the building went condo both those places went out of business. The East Side Diner space is still vacant and there is one of those urgent care health clinics where Bolton's was. That building used to be called Post Luminaria which I could never understand. When it went condo there was a huge banner up that read "bringing the heartbeat home to New York." Where do they get this stuff from? I always wonder what planet they are from. Meanwhile, no affordable clothes for women and no neighborhood diner.
ReplyDelete