Coveted West Village Elevator Building Sells for $11.5 million
By Carl Gaines April 18, 2012 4:20 pm
reprintsMarcus & Millichap (MMI) Real Estate Investment Services has arranged the sale of a West Village apartment building. The building, located at 205 West 10th Street, sold for $11.5 million—$5.5 million of which was provided via an acquisition loan arranged by Marcus & Millichap Capital Corp.
John Stewart, a senior associate in M&M’s Manhattan office, represented the seller. He told The Commercial Observer that the deal allowed the family that owned the property to switch up their investments.
“The seller was a family that owned another building as well—12 Fifth Avenue,” Mr. Stewart said. “They’d owned them both since the 1940s and decided that it was time to retire and move on, so in selling they took their proceeds and purchased a number of net-leased properties, through a 1031.”
Sources list the seller as Mar Mar Realty Co., though Mr. Stewart wouldn’t identify them. The buyer, he said, “is a private investor who owns a fairly substantial downtown portfolio of buildings.”
The property is six stories and contains 18 free-market units, ten rent-stabilized units and two rent-controlled units. It’s a mostly a mix of studios and one bedrooms. What made it notable, as a trade, Mr. Stewart said, was the one amenity every top-floor apartment dweller covets: an elevator.
“Very few elevator buildings exist in the West Village, and of that small volume very few trade on an annual basis,” he said. “They’re viewed—and the area’s viewed—as a very safe place to own a building. When they do sell, they sell for these cap rates that are very low and reflect a sort of bond-like safety.” This particular West Village elevator building, he added, sold a 3.67 percent cap rate—at the full price that it was offered for.
CGaines@observer.com
