Another Manhattan garage building will bite the dust to be reincarnated as a place to park people.
The Upper West Side garage at 219-223 W. 77th St. is on a plot of 7,700 square feet. Sources said it is being marketed as a residential tear-down that can be redeveloped to 77,000 square feet.
Located on the north side of the street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, and next to the new 20-story Larstrand rental, it would not surprise us to see bids rising to or above $800 per square foot — more than $61 million.
Calls to the Avison Young marketing team of Vincent Carrega, Neil Helman, Jon Epstein and Charles Kingsley were not returned.
Like other brokerages, this group has been active in the garage-sale market. Finance Department statistics show Manhattan had 865 garages in the tax year 2012-2013, but 860 in 2013-2014 — a loss of five garages and an untold number of spaces.
It also seems more are being marketed every day.
Brooklyn, the land of the hipster bikester, is losing even more — so far, 40 have bitten the dust.
Thirty are gone in the Bronx and three in Staten Island.
Queens is the biggest auto-space loser, however, as 44 went down for the count.
The good news is that the city’s tax rolls will increase as expensive luxury apartments take the place of these lower-valued garages. The bad news is that finding a place to park a car is getting a lot harder.
While a few parking spots have already been sold as a condo development perk, we predict that some entrepreneur will buy or take their current garage building, split it up, and sell all the spaces as car condos.
Any takers?
The ever-expanding Planet Fitness has leased a new location at 22 E. 14th St. between University Place and Fifth Avenue at the conjunction of the Union Square, Flatiron District and Greenwich Village neighborhoods.
Richard Chera, a principal of Crown Retail Services, and associate Jordan Barker represented PFNY in the deal that gives the gym 1,000 feet on the ground and a 15,000 square-foot exercise spread on the lower level.
A Ripco Real Estate team that included Peter Ripka, Andrew Mandell, Richard Skulnik and Jason Maurer represented the building owner on the transaction.
The Israeli-based vintage lifestyle designer Michal Negrin opened Tuesday in a petite 542 square-foot store at 151 Prince St. on the northwest corner of West Broadway.
It took the previous JF Rey Optical space.
The designer’s luxe and lace inspired jewelry, apparel and home décor collections were well received at its recent Spring Street pop-up store, and it is already a popular destination shop in other places in the US and around the world.
Michal Negrin was represented by Jason Turner and Adam Weinblatt of Zelnik & Co. while company President and CEO Cory Zelnik represented the red brick building’s ownership, Lloyd Goldman’s BLDG, which had an asking rent of $800 per foot.
As Mayor de Blasio gives a speech Wednesday at Cooper Union, perhaps he can help the university figure out why it is on the city’s lien list.
As of Tuesday, the campus owed $15,438 on one water meter and $1,251 on another. A call to their public affairs office was not returned.
Water collections remain a boondoggle for the city, with about $149 million owed. A cursory look at water delinquents includes a collection of hospitals, nursing sites, religious buildings and of course residences.
Even if an institution obtains a property tax exemption from the Finance Department, it still must apply to the Department of Environmental Protection to obtain a water exemption. This exemption, by the way, is also available for day care centers.
Although the city has the legal ability to turn off the water, that essentially never happens. The liens may be sold, however, with more surcharges added.
Those who paid up in the last few weeks included Puff Daddy, aka Sean Combs, who cleared up a $23,400 water bill for his Park Avenue apartment, records show.
Time Warner has leased back 975,624 square feet at the Time Warner Center while its 1.5 million square foot offices are being developed by Related in the north tower of Hudson Yards.
Related bought that office condo piece for $1.31 billion as part of the deal.