90 West Broadway loft bought at auction dresses up for magazine photo shoot

shown for life + design, not sale
One of the regular features in the must-read Tribeca Citizen is “Loft Peeping”, which today linked to an unidentified “3,500 sq ft” loft featured in New York Magazine’s Design Hunting title. Lofts featured in Manhattan Loft Guy are almost exclusively lofts that have recently sold; only rarely do I find enough information (pictures, floor plan) to talk about lived-in lofts that have not recently been for sale, so I look forward to Erik’s capture of links from design, architecture or lifestyle sites, like the one today. Voyeur that I am, I rarely resist the temptation to discover what I can (if anything) about the people or the lofts he links.

The story today is about a modern Tribeca couple (1 banker + 1 dancer + 3 kids) who bought two lofts at auction and combined them with the help of Ghislaine Viñas Interior Design, using black and white interiors and buzzing color furnishings (most dramatically, a coal black entry way: “it took some work to convince the family to coat their entire entryway in the heavy hue”). The Design Hunting article can be (awkwardly) read, page by page, on TriCi (pages 34 – 36, if you have the hard copy).

There’s still no floor plan, and not enough photos for my (unreasonable) tastes, but it is always interesting to see lofts presented as lived in and not just staged-for-sale. You won’t see this kind of description in broker babble:

“We used IKEA cabinets in the kitchen, but put custom doors on top”, says Vinas. Although it wasn’t exactly a low-budget renovation, “we had to figure out how to spend the money wisely.”

Or this:

The fiery TV room has become a beacon when viewed from the street. “At night, it actually glows a soft, warm orange”, says Vinas.

Because the focus is the design and the interior, the photos were shot so as not to reveal too much about the views (too distracting??). A sales photo for the living room from the same angle as third image would surely show what is outside those corner windows. And a sales effort would omit those oh-so-cute, oh-so-posed children in the lead image of the dramatic black entry.

parsing before + after hints
With the unusual name of the couple, it was not hard to find where they bought and where they lived before. You’ve seen the address of the Gerken Building in the title (I was hoping it had been a pickle factory, but StreetEasy thinks it was the NY National Exchange Bank), and their loft is the 5th floor, for which they paid $2.6mm on February 24, 2011 after a bankruptcy auction of what had been two must-be-combined lofts. That bankruptcy listing has this floor plan, but no interior photos.

There are two interior pictures from a brief attempt to sell for $2.8mm in 2009, with some (of course) enthusiastic sales-y babble:

3500 SF full floor loft with 22 windows providing fantastic views and amazing light! Currently 2 apartments (originally 1) that need to be combined to create a magnificent sun flooded home! … a blank canvas for you to create your dream! … 10’6 ceilings …. priced to sell at only $2,800,000 !!! … This landmarked pre-war building was the first co-op in Tribeca. … if you are looking for value, space, prime location and an amazing apartment with fantastic bones

From the Design Hunting piece it is hard to tell what is left of the bones. That living room image shows window frames that were either painted white or replaced. And the flooring is new (it runs perpendicular to the old, if I am reading the 3rd and 4th images correctly). They started with 4 bedrooms, 2 living rooms, and 2 kitchens, and ended up with 4 bedrooms, 1 media room, 1 living room (in the same corner as in the 2009 photo), and 1 kitchen, so it is hard to say how much structural work they did. If the new kitchen is near that dining table with the black sheep chair (4th image; did that chair move between the 3rd and 4th images??), it is far from the two kitchens in the original floor plan. (In which case, they did a lot of structural work.) Which brings me to some arithmetical guesswork….

looks like numbers worked, pretty much
City records show they paid $2.6mm, and I have a vague recollection of hearing that when auctions work the buyers pay the auction fee of 10% on top of the purchase price. If so, their purchase nut is $2.86mm, with renovation costs on top of that. Keep in mind the IKEA cabinets with custom fronts and the comment that this “wasn’t exactly a low-budget renovation”, and assume a low-end conservative renovation budget ballparked at $200/ft, or $700,000. They are up to roughly $3.56mm.

I swear that this is a coincidence: the last full-floor loft to sell here was the 6th floor, right above this black entry and fiery TV room, back in August 2010 at … (wait for it) … $3.6mm. That one sounds as though it would be comparable to how the newly renovated 5th floor would be babbled, if an agent got to babbling:

four exposures and dramatic city views, … laid out perfectly for gracious entertaining and easy family life. The well designed kitchen includes Viking, Sub Zero, Thermador and Kitchen Aid appliances. Private family quarters include a large and serene master suite with bath, two additional bedrooms, a full bathroom and a children’s playroom with many built-ins. This incredible home also features a guest bedroom/library with en suite marble bath; laundry room with oversized washer/dryer; a home gym

My guess is that the new 5th floor kitchen is pretty much where the 6th floor kitchen is in this floorplan, which makes sense when you think about plumbing and waste lines.

Using the 6th floor sale almost two years ago at $3.6mm as the best comp, and assuming my ballpark renovation guesstimate is reasonable, it appears as though the 5th floor folks paid a fair price at auction, that they neither overpaid nor got a bargain.

But there are a great many assumptions in that conclusion, one of which is that the 6th floor is the best comp. There is an older sale of a loft that babbles as superior to the 6th floor; if that 4th floor sale in September 2006 at $4.4mm is the better comp, then perhaps the 5th floor folks spent more on the renovation than $700,000, or perhaps they did get a bargain. We’re just playing here, folks!

Here is the babble that supported the 4th floor at a 22% premium over the 6th floor, even 18 months before The Peak in the overall Manhattan residential real estate market:

Tranquility! 22 WINDOWS AND A CORNER! Breathtaking & Subtle! 3500sf full-floor corner loft with tree-covered Bogardus Triangle views in top TriBeCa coop. This triple mint 3BR home graced with open great room: easily flowing from kitchen to dining, living and media areas, oversized North and East facing tilt and turn windows, subtle recessed lighting and restored cast iron pillars. Stunning, published design by Lisa Pak and Freyer Collaborative Architects boasts of an enormous Boffi kitchen, abundant cabinets, English Lake District stone counters, recessed soapstone sink, Jade cook-top,double-wide Subzero, 2 Miele ovens and a Miele dishwasher. Lovely powder room + 2 full baths. Bedrooms branch off the living area. The elegant master has 2 walk-in closets, a most extraordinary en-suite bath:solid granite soaking tub, generous shower, double sinks. Two additional bedrooms and media/library area. Abundant closets throughout, laundry.zoned CAC, wired for sound. Private basement storage. New common roof deck in progress. With a Zen aura, this sophisticated home reflects a timeless yet contemporary touch and taste.

That does not sound like a renovation that worried too much about spending money so wisely that it put custom fronts on IKEA cabinets, but the 4th floor at least suggests the possibility that the 5th floor came at a bargain rate at auction.

Enough guesswork! Let’s track these folks before they went to auction, as any true loft voyeur would….

more prosaic Tribeca beginnings
The week before paying $2.6mm for “3,500 sq ft” in classic Tribeca loft building that is said ot be the first coop in Tribeca, these folks sold this “2,000 sq ft” Tribeca apartment (not loft) for $2.16mm in a circa-1988 newly built condo (first generation, hardly deluxe by current standards). That was also a combination (like the 5th floor at 90 West Broadway), already combined when they bought it in January 2005 at $1.6mm. The parallel bathroom pictures from 2005 (in our listing system) and 2011 show the same fixtures, but the kitchen was opened up and renovated by the 2011-sellers-who-moved-to-90-West-Broadway. I am not going to ballpark their numbers, except to say that they bought in 2005 at $1.6mm and renovated, then sold in 2011 at $2.16mm. Not bad.

With 3 kids, that 3 bedroom apartment no longer cut it, even with “2,000 sq ft”. Best Manhattan Loft Guy wishes that they will be very happy with the bright colors, fantastic views, amazing light, and “3,500 sq ft” at 90 West Broadway. I won’t be stalking them again (until they sell, of course).

© Sandy Mattingly 2012