LOWER EAST SIDE — A rent-stabilized apartment building on the Lower East Side recently sold for $3.35 million, a price brokers said was raised by increasing interest in the area south of Grand Street.
The building at 237 Henry St., which has 20 rent-stabilized apartments and no ground-floor retail space, was purchased by The Vintage Group LLC Aug. 1, according to Massey Knakal Realty Services, the company that brokered the deal.
The Vintage Group owns other mixed-use walk-up buildings in Lower Manhattan and paid all cash for 237 Henry St. The company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Michael DeCheser, first vice president of sales in the area for Massey Knakal, said the sale is just another indicator of heightened interest in the area following the approval of a nearby 1.65 million-square-foot development project at the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area and the construction of a large hotel on Division Street.
"This is the type of asset that every investor wants to own," DeCheser said. "There is really no place for the rent to go but up."
Average rent in the building is now just less than $1,000 per apartment, but the property represents a long-term investment because the apartments could eventually become market-rate, DeCheser said.
"These are all big units," he said. "If they are vacated they could probably be made into two-bedrooms and rented for about $3,000."
DeCheser said he did not know of any other rent-stabilized building in the area with no ground-floor retail space that had sold for as much as 237 Henry St.'s $400 per square foot. The only other example he was aware of in the area was a building that went for about $350 per square foot, he said.
