First Look Inside Battery Park City’s New Super-Sized Condos

In its former life as 22 River Terrace, the waterfront Battery Park City building on the corner of Warren Street was home to 324 rentals. But following a Centurion-led and CetraRuddy designed condo conversion, the building which now goes by the address of 212 Warren Street or, better yet, by the moniker River & Warren holds just 169 condos. With its drastically-reduced apartment count, the residences are large—the building’s smallest apartment still has two bedrooms and is over 1,000 square feet in size. The apartments, with bedroom counts as high as five, are priced between about $2 million and $10 million.

April2015-1

This 2,277-square-foot four-bedroom model unit is one of about 15 in the building that comes with outdoor space.

 Although the apartment’s only on the third floor—out of 28—it still has great views of the Hudson River and the parks surrounding the building.

April2015-2

This three-bedroom model is on the 21st floor.

It’s on the building’s southwest corner and overlooks New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty, and Battery Park.

April2015-3

This two-bedroom model measures about 1,409 square feet and faces the Hudson River.

February Signs Record Setting 116 Contracts for $4M or More!

March2015-record

 

Last month was the coldest February in New York in 81 years. This, however, wasn’t the city’s only notable record. February also saw a record-setting amount of contracts signed for $4 million or more. In the last week of February, 30 contracts were signed at that price point, according to the latest Olshan Realty luxury report. This adds up to a total of 116 contracts for $4 million or more, a 23 percent increase since last year. The total sales volume was up 16 percent to $978 million, compared to February last year. January saw a total of 98 contracts signed for $4 million and above.

A penthouse at Rudin Management and Global Holdings’ Greenwich Lane at 160 West 12th Street for $33 million was last week’s biggest contract. The more than 5,000-square-foot triplex penthouse includes four bedrooms, four-and-a-half bathrooms and a total of more than 3,700 square feet of outdoor space. Greenwich Lane — which is comprised of five buildings and five townhouses and won’t be done for about a year — is 77 percent sold out, according to the report. Two multifamily townhouses at 55-57 West 88th Street for $22.5 million were the week’s second biggest contract. The townhouses, which include a total of 14,230 square feet and 12 free-market rental units, hit the market in 2013 for $26 million.

StreetEasy and Floored Partner to Introduce 3-D Floor Plans

Feb2015-3d-floor-plan

StreetEasy has partnered with Floored to offer potential buyers a 3D look at an apartment’s floor plan.

Floored, a Manhattan-based software company that creates 3D visualizations of offices and other space, will transform two-dimensional floor plans into three-dimensional models, according to the New York Post. The newest floor plan option is launching today.

“Floor plans are a huge part of residential listings,” StreetEasy’s Susan Daimler told the newspaper. The model will help shoppers fully understand how rooms flow into each other, she added.

Buyers can look at the 3-D models on computers or smartphones, according to the newspaper.

 

2015: Year of the Condo in New York City

Jan2015-condo-towers

 

At least twice as many new condominium units are scheduled to hit the Manhattan market this year as in 2014, the most since 2007. That means more choice for buyers and some welcome competition among developers. The influx comes after a five-year shortage, when new condo buildings practically had the market to themselves, allowing developers to push prices ever higher. The oncoming wave of new development in 2015, some real estate watchers predict, will temper that price growth and slow the pace of sales, providing some relief to Manhattan buyers.

Over all, at least 6,500 new condo units are expected to open for sales below 96th Street across more than 100 buildings in 2015, as opposed to about 2,500 units in 59 buildings last year, according to the Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group, which tracks new development. Inventory will be the highest it has been since 2007, when 8,052 new units were listed.

Statistics have proven that whenever the market is strong the consumer is the ultimate winner within a competitive environment. In order to compete, people will have to build better product.  To stand out, developers are focusing on architecture, interior design and craftsmanship. In the past, developers were building to what they believed their marketplace was rather than building to attract new buyers in their marketplace.  Today, the level of design is very high where buyers will not only have vast quantity to chose from but more importantly, quality.