WOOLWORTH
WARREN LOFTS (
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When it was built, New York by Gehry, the soaring, 76-story residential tower at 8 Spruce St. in the Financial District, was in something of a no-man’s land.
It wasn’t near Wall Street, like many of the new developments that cropped up in FiDi over the past 10 years. Nor was it abutting TriBeCa, like those that showed up on the West Side, close to the World Trade Center.
Instead, it was a block and a half east of City Hall Park, around the corner from the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge and, frankly, not a lot else.
Not exactly somewhere most Manhattanites would consider conducive to living. The closest new residential building was Barclay Tower, a rental development more than three blocks west, on the other side of City Hall Park.
But 8 Spruce St. has been wildly successful, leasing nearly 90 percent of its more than 900 units for impressive prices since coming on the market in February 2011. And like the cool kid, it’s inspired a whole parade of followers. Indeed, there is currently so much action on the blocks surrounding the southern tip of City Hall Park, the area is practically its own micro-neighborhood.
“There was nothing going on there; it was a dead pocket, and now there are other buildings in the area,” says Cliff Finn, president of new-development marketing at Citi Habitats, which is leasing the units at 8 Spruce St.
“Other buildings” is an understatement. To come, starting on the east side of the park and horseshoeing down around the bottom and back up are: 5 Beekman, a 285-room Thompson hotel and adjacent 85-condo building; 113 Nassau, a 30-story, 169-unit rental project, now three stories out of the ground; the redevelopment of the top 30 stories of the iconic Woolworth Building into full-floor residences, as high-end as anything in the city; a Four Seasons with 175 hotel rooms below 143 condos at 99 Church St.; a shiny-new condo building at 19 Park Place; and farthest into that southern edge of TriBeCa, Warren Lofts, 18 condos under construction at 37 Warren St., which “softly” came on the market earlier this summer.
“The neighborhood is attracting a lot of people who are excited and energized by what’s happening in lower Manhattan,” Finn says, “between the World Trade Center, and the 9/11 Memorial, and all the retail, and the Fulton Street hub and the Pier 17 mall being redeveloped.”
Indeed, the new Fulton Center will include 70,000 square feet of retail and office space when it is finished in 2014. And Pier 17 is in the approval process for a complete reconception, which will include a glassy retail center. In addition, Condé Nast has leased space in the forthcoming 1 World Trade Center tower, expressing a confidence in the neighborhood’s potential that is exciting many a developer.
“With Condé Nast and the Trade Center being completed, there will be a vitality that didn’t exist four or five years ago,” says Ken Horn, president of Alchemy Properties, which is developing the residences in the Woolworth Building. “We’re going to help anchor that change. Whoever thought there would be a Four Seasons in the Financial District 10 years ago?”
The perception of the area isn’t only changing among developers. Those looking for a place to live also seem to feel the buzz.
“We get people from all neighborhoods. Though the largest percentage are from below 34th Street,” Finn says of the renters at 8 Spruce St. “We are seeing a lot of people [who’ve relocated] to New York for the first time on a national and an international level — singles, couples, families with kids.”
When they were getting ready to move in together, Alexandra Kau and her husband, Brian Copp, didn’t envision themselves in a high-rise.
“We were looking in TriBeCa loft-type buildings,” Copp says. “The Gehry building was in the news, and we went to see what it looked like, and we were sold right when we walked in.”
What sold them was Frank Gehry’s avant-garde design and the lifestyle the building offered. Now they rent a two-bedroom and an adjacent one-bedroom. (They wanted a three-bedroom, but the larger units weren’t yet on the market.) And they make good use of the building’s amenities: the screening room, dining room and gym, among them.
Those spaces are important because, though the neighborhood is certainly coming along, it’s not all the way there.
“We have to walk to Whole Foods in TriBeCa, but they deliver,” says Copp, who elaborates that the walk is only 10 minutes. “When they have the Financial District Whole Foods, it will have arrived.”
The couple find themselves in TriBeCa often, for shopping and restaurants and visits to 6-month-old son Theodore’s pediatrician.
But new buildings in the area around 8 Spruce St. will mean more amenities. When 5 Beekman opens in 2014, it will bring with it 12,000 square feet of restaurant and event space. The under-construction 113 Nassau will include retail. And 99 Church, where Silverstein Properties is working on securing financing, with the goal of starting construction early next year, will have a “premier” restaurant.
As for pricing, despite the fact that it’s still somewhat obscure, the area can cost as much as anywhere in the city. Studios at 8 Spruce St., for example, start at $2,575, one-bedrooms at $3,575, two-bedrooms at $6,000 and three-bedrooms at $12,000. The building does offer one or two month’s rent as a concession, depending on the situation. The leasing team just put the building’s three penthouses, which range from 2,500 to 3,800 square feet, on the market for $45,000 and $60,000 a month.
As for condos, the two-bedrooms at Warren Lofts start at $1.8 million, and the penthouses at $6 million.
Prices should go even higher when the Woolworth Building condos hit the market. With 5,000- to 6,000-square-foot floor plates, there’s talk from brokers that these units could go for $3,000-plus a square foot. And they could wind up being much higher given the trophy address. Either way, we’re likely talking $15 million and above for some units.
“We’re not speculating [on price],” Horn says. “Who knows what the market will be like and the demand, but clearly this will be in the upper echelon of New York’s iconic buildings.”