West 30s ready for a close-up (but send Max back to Bible study)
lofts for less in a less labeled land
The Manhattan loft nabe I called Big Sky country a month ago was featured in the NY Post two weeks ago as a land of less expensive lofts, but reporter Max Gross garbled his Bible references.
Low-priced condos and lofts with tons of space and amazing views – the 21st-century equivalent of loaves and fishes – are on the market in the heart of Manhattan, west of Sixth Avenue from 34th to 41st streets.
Space + views = loaves & fishes?? Miraculously multiplied by Jesus, that was loaves and fishes. Coveted and unusual, that is “tons of space and amazing views”. Huh?? But I digress….
“We really loved the industrial feel,” says Michelle Turner. “But we didn’t have the TriBeCa checkbook.” So they turned an 1,100-square-foot former office in the Glass Farmhouse building on West 37th Street into their own gorgeous two-bedroom.
I agree with Gross about the light and views at the Glass Farmhouse (see my Big Sky post from July 31), and mostly about the space there, as well. But I am not sure his math holds up.
The Glass Farmhouse, a mixed-use office/ residential building, has been selling lofts for just over $900 per square foot. That’s significantly less than the average of $1,038 per square foot you’ll find a few blocks south in Chelsea, but it’s still a huge step up for the Garment District, where many units are still less than $800 per square foot.
Unit 9A in that building has been in contract since July — probably well under $900/ft — for a gut renovation. The PruDE listing by Marian Levitt is said to be 1,650 sq ft and was first offered by Sotheby’s at $1.795mm last November, then in a classic death-by-dripping-dollars, it went to $1.695mm, to $1.595mm. to $1.495mm and then to PruDE for $1.45mm, and (ta-da!) to $1.295mm. If they got the full $1.295mm asking price, that is $785 per square foot.
Unit 10E is still for sale, through Adrian Noriega and Tamir Shemesh of PruDE. This one needs some renovations, perhaps (“endless possibilities” and “bring your designer”), and is 1261 square feet offered for $925k. That is asking $734 per square foot.
(Note to NY Post editors: send Mr. Gross to math class after Bible study.)
Round up the usual suspects
Reporter Gross found a broker to offer the obligatory comparison:
And some brokers are even saying this area could become the new SoHo.
"It definitely has the potential," says Andrew Barrocas, owner of the Real Estate Group. "It has a lot of the same characteristics."
Well, sort of.
It has grit (what Gross calls the “raffish, unpolished feel”), check. It has too-hip-types (“the funky artists and photographers that made the SoHo of yore so gritty and delicious”), check (“delicious”??). And few residential services, check.
Highway 61, redux
But 8th and 9th Avs are way busier than any of the main thoroughfares in Soho or Tribeca. And – although Tribeca has the Holland Tunnel – the Lincoln Tunnel and its approaches eat up a huge swath of the West 30s. So let’s wait on the Next Soho thing (another digression … the Next Soho is to Manhattan neighborhoods as the Next Dylan was to ‘70s music).
We never got a new Dylan (unless you count the schizoid permutations of Robert Zimmerman himself) and we don’t need a new Soho. A more well-developed, better serviced West 30s will be fine.
© Sandy Mattingly 2006
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