Yesterday we reported that Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., a major commercial property owner, was marketing billboard space at 156-164 Delancey Street, a single story building directly across the street from the Seward Park Mixed-Use development site. The promotional materials offered a pretty obvious clue that the property had recently changed hands. Today we have confirmation of that.
A short time ago, Michael DeCheser of Massey Knakal Real Estate Services said 156-164 Delancey is in contract and the sale is expected to be finalized very soon. He said there were more than 30 offers for the site, which includes 12,000 square feet of air rights. Half of the offers met or exceeded the asking price, which was set at $3,950,000. He declined to disclose the sale price. Previously, the property had been part of the estate of Muriel L. Block, a benefactor of Yeshiva University.
DeCheser, who handles the Lower East Side (specifically the area east of the Bowery) for Massey Knakal, has been very busy in the past several months. He brokered the sale of 126 Delancey, the three-story commercial building at Norfolk Street, for $26 million, as well as 100 Norfolk, the hyper-modern condo complex planned across the way from the Blue Building. Another building, 104 Suffolk Street, located just off Delancey, is also in contract, DeCheser said. It’s listed for $5.7 million (more on this property later).
There’s no doubt, DeCheser explained, that the Seward Park project is generating a lot of interest from real estate investors and driving prices up. “Every buyer asks questions about it,” he said. Now that the city has put out a “request for proposals” for the 1.6 million square foot residential/commercial site “excitement is definitely growing.” There are other factors, of course. The real estate market has bounced back citywide, and the LES would be desirable even without Seward Park, in part due to its diverse mixed-income retail mix. “The Lower East Side has never seen higher values,” DeCheser observed.
