Flatiron Building to be Converted to 60 Luxury Condos
The developers hope to welcome the first residents to the property by the end of 2026
By Abigail Nehring August 26, 2024 7:58 pm
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A landmarked office building that’s been covered in scaffolding for the last year officially launched its next chapter as a potential home for 60 well-to-do New York households.
The Brodsky Organization, GFP Real Estate and The Sorgente Group filed an application to convert the Flatiron Building’s 204,593 square feet of aging office space into 60 luxury condominium units, according to Department of City Planning records made public Monday.
The joint venture hopes to get the green light from the city by the end of the year to launch interior renovations of the 21-story tower at 175 Fifth Avenue, according to an environmental assessment of the proposed conversion. It would put the developers on track to complete the project over the following 18 months and allow homeowners to move in by the end of 2026.
Spokespeople for Sorgente and Brodsky, which is taking the lead as the managing partner of the joint venture, declined to comment. A spokesperson for Jeff Gural’s GFP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It’s unclear what the breakdown of unit types and sizes for the proposed project will be, but the developers estimated the Flatiron Building could fit up to 100 apartments at an average of 1,998 square feet, bigger than other office-to-residential conversions because of the triangle-shaped property’s “unique floor plates,” according to the application.
The developers are only seeking to build up to 60 units across the second through 21st floors, all of which will be sold at market rate.
Meanwhile, the empty retail space on the ground floor will shrink slightly from 6,500 square feet to 4,807 square feet, according to the application.
The Flatiron Building’s future had been up in the air for several years after its main tenant, British book publisher Macmillan, departed for 120 Broadway in 2019, as Commercial Observer previously reported. The property has remained mainly vacant for years.
That led to some infighting between the owners with GFP, Sorgente, ABS Real Estate Partners and Newmark (NMRK) alleging that partner Nathan Silverstein stonewalled plans to pump $100 million in renovations to boost leasing at the aging property.
They took Silverstein to court in 2021 to get a partition sale of the property and a judge set an auction last year on the steps of the 60 Centre Street courthouse.
However, things went off the rails when the enigmatic Jacob Garlick, a managing partner at Abraham Trust, outbid Gural and offered to buy the property for $190 million.
Garlick failed to pony up the $19 million deposit due after the bidding and it went back on the auction block on May 23, 2023, with GFP locking down the property for $161.5 million.
The Flatiron Building then joined the city’s growing list of office-to-residential conversions last fall, when Brodsky bought an undisclosed stake in the property and revealed plans to turn it into homes.
Brodsky CEO Daniel Brodsky said in a statement in October that the landmark at the southwest corner of Madison Square Park is “well-suited for residences,” but did not reveal the details of their plans. Brodsky hinted only that the conversion would last about three years and the building would have around 40 units when completed, as The New York Times previously reported.
The developers plan to replace the building’s historic windows with new ones and undertake other minor exterior work, and the Landmarks Preservation Commission already signed off on the plans earlier this year, the application shows.
The Flatiron’s conversion plan will go before the City Planning Commission for approval after the developers officially give the city notice of their proposal.
Abigail Nehring can be reached at anehring@commercialobserver.com.
