Local developers’ conversion of the landmarked Jarmulowsky Bank building into a boutique hotel isn’t the only big change coming to the intersection of Orchard and Canal streets.
The apartment building on the northwest corner, known as both 55-57 Canal St. and 11-13 Orchard St., changed hands last week, after about nine months on the market. A listing on Loopnet dated March 2012 set the price at $4.8 million; city land records indicate it sold for just a little more than asking price, at $4.9 million.
The five-story multi-family dwelling is listed as a “loft conversion” with an elevator, but Loopnet noted it “would need total gut renovation.” A plumbing supply store whose lease expires at the end of this month occupies the ground-floor commercial space, according to the listing. The building includes about 6,000 square feet of interior space, and air rights for an additional 1,400 square feet. The city’s buildings department lists 11 active violations of regulations there, with the most recent issues involving elevator inspections.
As is increasingly becoming the case in Manhattan real estate transactions, both the seller and the the buyer are blind corporate entities, both of which list their addresses at 55 Canal St. The seller, 55 Canal Realty Corp., acquired the building in 1995, according to city records. The sale predates the modern records database, so the price was not recorded. The buyer, 55 Canal LLC, was just incorporated in October, and lists a contact address of a representative in Albany in corporate paperwork on file with New York state.
In another Orchard Street real estate transaction that hit the books last week, the one-story building at 194 Orchard St., between Stanton and East Houston streets, sold for $3 million to a corporate partnership listing a Great Neck address. The property, which is home to the VIP Leather Gallery, is zoned for mixed use and estimated to at more than 9,000 buildable square feet.
