new development 72 Mercer holds its own from peak

looking up from THE peak
The Manhattan loft #4E at 72 Mercer Street traded on January 29 (deed filed yesterday!) for $3.2mm, which is noteworthy for more than the up-to-the-minute currency: when it sold as brand spanking new in April 2008 the price was $3.165mm. I am not saying this is (another?) sign of a thaw — as I did yesterday, prematurely perhaps, with my on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand post, sign of a thaw? 147 West 22 Street closes up 9% over 2006, 263 Ninth does not — but it is something.

This is an interesting sale because the prior closing was about as close to THE peak of the Manhattan residential real estate market as I have noted for any repeat-sale loft: I subscribe to The Miller’s usage of sales closing in 1Q08 as the top of the market; this one closed on April 1, 2008. As a new development sale, the lag between contract and closing was a little longer than for a typical resale, but in this case ‘the lag’ was not very long: the contract was signed October 31, 2007.

But as a new development sale, it may be that the April 1, 2008 price was not as good an indication of that market as a resale in a building with a mature and established market may have been, but in those heady days I tend to doubt that the developer (intentionally) left any money on the table. As is, I am inclined to take this sale as one resale that held its value from The Peak to January 2010. A rare feat, indeed. Kudos to that seller and his/her star-studded PruDE team.

your cup of tea?
The building was built new in 2006 and is in the love-it-or-hate-it category. (I don’t love it.) Scrupulously "post-modern", it nods at the local facades in a ‘clean’ and ‘sleek’ way. Critics would say "smugly", but you know how critics are…. The architects have done a fair amount of work in the immediate area, including down the street at 44 Mercer Street (a design I prefer to 72 Mercer Street). Their portfolio page has some interesting tidbits, including a hint at what Soho was like back in the day.

Whether because of negligence, squatters (artists??), insurance or some other factor, the sites on which both 44 Mercer and 72 Mercer sit suffered devastating fires "in the 1960s"; in one case totally destroying the building, in the other leaving a first floor facade and set of columns. Lots of fires in Soho back then….

© Sandy Mattingly 2010