An auction yesterday of six condominium apartments at M127, a 12-story building at 127 Madison Avenue between 30th and 31st Streets was successful with all units selling at discounts from the original 2007 prices of more than 25 percent, according to an article today in The Wall Street Journal by Josh Barbanel.
127 Madison Partners LLC, of which Trevor Stahelski was the manager, commissioned SHoPArchitects P.C., the designers of The Porter House on the southeast corner of Ninth Avenue and 15th street, to add five floors to the former 7-story commercial building and create a total of 9 residential condominium apartments.
The conversion of the 7-stor, mid-block commercial building at this site into a 12-story residential condominium building was completed in 2007.
The mid-block building is located at 127 Madison Avenue between 30th and 31st Streets.
The project is notable for its dramatic and unusual window treatment. SHoP has angled the windows in the base of the building slightly towards the south while indenting them a bit at the south end of the facade and projected them somewhat at the north end. The entrance has a similarly angled metal canopy that projects further from the building than the windows above it but a large window at the entrance is angled to the north.
SHoP has also designed a new building project at 290 Mulberry Street for the same developer, which is known as Cardinal Investments, that will feature a very unusual undulating facade pattern that indents the upper right corner of most of the windows.
The Madison Avenue property was called M127, which, according to Bruce Ehrmann, executive vice president of Stribling & Associates, was a "friendly tribute" to the city's system of bus signage.
The building's design is something of a variation on the zig-zag facade of the Switch Building at 109 Norfolk Street, which was nearing completion and was designed by nArchitects.
Prices for the full-floor units in the building are expected to range from about $1.5 to $1.9 million and the two duplex penthouse units will be "considerably more," according to Mr. Ehrmann.
According to Mr. Barbanel's article, the building "had been facing the risk of foreclosure sold out its last six apartments in just more than an hour in heavy bidding on Sunday, in what real-estate brokers say may be a harbinger for condo auctions in Manhattan."
"Misha Haghani of Paramount Realty USA, who auctioned the property, said that while individuals and banks had auctioned off apartments in the past, this was the first successful auction by a Manhattan developer in more than two decades.," the article said, adding that "The auction attracted more than 100 registered bidders to the Roosevelt Hotel, and the winners took apartments at an average of $840 per square foot, a steep discount from original asking prices. A 1,577-square-foot fifth-floor apartment sold for $1.24 million, including a 5% auction premium, 25% less than a similar apartment sold for in the spring of 2008, when apartment prices were near a peak."
"The threat of foreclosure had placed a cloud over the auction, but late Friday afternoon the developer announced that their lender, the Bank of Smithtown, had been satisfied in full," the article said.
Within hours of the auction, the developer, Cardinal Investment, signed contracts to sell five full-floor units to the buyers. Kyle Ransford, a principal of Cardinal Investment, said the auction "gave us an opportunity for some recovery."
An article by Bilal Khan at curbed.com today said that more than 400 people showed up for the auction, which was conducted by Paramount Realty USA and lasted "less than 20 minutes."
An article by Malcolm Carter, a broker at Charles Rutenberg Realty, on his website today maintained that the seller rejected the winning bid of $2,047,500 (including buyer's premium) for the 2,255-sf penthouse at m127, according to Paramount Realty USA.
With three bedrooms, two and a half baths and a 338-sf terrace, that unit alone was subject to the developer's approval, Mr. Carter noted, adding that the listed price was $3.4 million, and the discount amounts to 40 percent.
Bids minus the penthouse totaled $6,384,000, resulting in an average price of $1,276,800, he continued, adding that the sum of all the sold apartments represents a 28 percent discount from the previously listed total of $8.85 million for them.
127 Madison Partners LLC, of which Trevor Stahelski was the manager, commissioned SHoPArchitects P.C., the designers of The Porter House on the southeast corner of Ninth Avenue and 15th street, to add five floors to the former 7-story commercial building and create a total of 9 residential condominium apartments.
The conversion of the 7-stor, mid-block commercial building at this site into a 12-story residential condominium building was completed in 2007.
The mid-block building is located at 127 Madison Avenue between 30th and 31st Streets.
The project is notable for its dramatic and unusual window treatment. SHoP has angled the windows in the base of the building slightly towards the south while indenting them a bit at the south end of the facade and projected them somewhat at the north end. The entrance has a similarly angled metal canopy that projects further from the building than the windows above it but a large window at the entrance is angled to the north.
SHoP has also designed a new building project at 290 Mulberry Street for the same developer, which is known as Cardinal Investments, that will feature a very unusual undulating facade pattern that indents the upper right corner of most of the windows.
The Madison Avenue property was called M127, which, according to Bruce Ehrmann, executive vice president of Stribling & Associates, was a "friendly tribute" to the city's system of bus signage.
The building's design is something of a variation on the zig-zag facade of the Switch Building at 109 Norfolk Street, which was nearing completion and was designed by nArchitects.
Prices for the full-floor units in the building are expected to range from about $1.5 to $1.9 million and the two duplex penthouse units will be "considerably more," according to Mr. Ehrmann.
According to Mr. Barbanel's article, the building "had been facing the risk of foreclosure sold out its last six apartments in just more than an hour in heavy bidding on Sunday, in what real-estate brokers say may be a harbinger for condo auctions in Manhattan."
"Misha Haghani of Paramount Realty USA, who auctioned the property, said that while individuals and banks had auctioned off apartments in the past, this was the first successful auction by a Manhattan developer in more than two decades.," the article said, adding that "The auction attracted more than 100 registered bidders to the Roosevelt Hotel, and the winners took apartments at an average of $840 per square foot, a steep discount from original asking prices. A 1,577-square-foot fifth-floor apartment sold for $1.24 million, including a 5% auction premium, 25% less than a similar apartment sold for in the spring of 2008, when apartment prices were near a peak."
"The threat of foreclosure had placed a cloud over the auction, but late Friday afternoon the developer announced that their lender, the Bank of Smithtown, had been satisfied in full," the article said.
Within hours of the auction, the developer, Cardinal Investment, signed contracts to sell five full-floor units to the buyers. Kyle Ransford, a principal of Cardinal Investment, said the auction "gave us an opportunity for some recovery."
An article by Bilal Khan at curbed.com today said that more than 400 people showed up for the auction, which was conducted by Paramount Realty USA and lasted "less than 20 minutes."
An article by Malcolm Carter, a broker at Charles Rutenberg Realty, on his website today maintained that the seller rejected the winning bid of $2,047,500 (including buyer's premium) for the 2,255-sf penthouse at m127, according to Paramount Realty USA.
With three bedrooms, two and a half baths and a 338-sf terrace, that unit alone was subject to the developer's approval, Mr. Carter noted, adding that the listed price was $3.4 million, and the discount amounts to 40 percent.
Bids minus the penthouse totaled $6,384,000, resulting in an average price of $1,276,800, he continued, adding that the sum of all the sold apartments represents a 28 percent discount from the previously listed total of $8.85 million for them.
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
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