LAND GRAB: The 835 rentals at 505 W. 37th leased in six months after hitting the market in 2010, says Scott Walsh of TF Cornerstone. (Astrid Stawiarz)
BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE: Sara Axelrod, an advertising strategist and restaurant blogger who moved to Emerald Green two years ago, is thrilled by the restaurants that have started to open up nearby. (Astrid Stawiarz)
THE BETTER TO SEE YOU WITH: Part of what sold Ray Turoczy (left) and Alan Locher on the 15th-floor one-bedroom they rent at 455 W. 37th were the floor-to-ceiling windows and balcony, which offer them impressive skyline vistas that include the Empire State Building. (Christian Johnston)
Yotel, a hotel with a roof terrace that opened in MiMa on 42nd Street is just one of the amenities that big new developments have brought to the area. (AP)
Sara Axelrod has been a long and hopeful proponent of the Far West Side as a residential neighborhood. She moved to the area five years ago because the price was right.
“I was originally looking in Chelsea and the West Village, but I couldn’t find anything for [under $1,300].”
She was able to stay within her range, but that meant taking a share at 30th Street and Ninth Avenue: “It wasn’t necessarily where everyone wanted to be, but it was convenient and close to the subways.”
At that time, the neighborhood was best defined by the neighborhoods around it. Essentially, it was the blocks between Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, roughly 28th to 42nd streets, from Eighth Avenue west. The area consisted of gas stations and parking lots, and it was choked with the traffic heading toward the Lincoln Tunnel. Basically, it was a wasteland.
“It was mostly the rail yards and the back of Penn Station and the back of the post office and more utilitarian businesses, like mortgage places and check-cashing places, nowhere you’d go for leisure,” Axelrod says. “I would either walk south to Chelsea or about 10 blocks up to Hell’s Kitchen. There was nothing between 28th and 42nd streets.”
While the neighborhood is still rife with distinctly un-Manhattan-like utilization of space — whole blocks are used to store rental trucks — and the area is still fogged with the exhaust from Lincoln Tunnel traffic, it is in Manhattan and it has begun its inevitable change.
Thousands of new rental apartments have sprouted in high-rise, amenity-laden buildings, including Silver Towers’ more than 1,400 units on 42nd between 11th and 12th; Emerald Green’s 569 units in two towers on 38th between Eighth and Ninth; 505 W. 37th and 455 W. 37th, both near 10th Avenue, with 835 and 260 units respectively. These buildings offer housing stock — spanking new and stuffed with perks like gyms, screening rooms, game rooms and landscaped roofs — that isn’t available in Hell’s Kitchen, what with its low-density walk-ups. And the newcomers are cheaper than similar product in nearby Chelsea.
The buildings have filled quickly, joining a handful of high-profile condo complexes (including the Atelier on 42nd between 11th and 12th) and flooding the area with residents.
“A lot of people who I sold to at the Orion [a condo building on 42nd between Eighth and Ninth] did not expect that that’s where they would end up,” says Noble Black, a senior vice president at the Corcoran Group. But factors, including “the views and the gym and the new finishes” and low prices (units sold for less than $1,000 a square foot when they came on the market in 2005) made their decisions easy.
And what the area lacked, the buildings tried to make up for. Orion, for example, offered free breakfast and a La Palestra fitness center.
With the new residents have come new conveniences.
“When we first moved the only thing in the immediate vicinity that offered any sort of convenience was a BP station with a Dunkin’ Donuts in it,” says Ray Turoczy, who rents with his partner, Alan Locher, at 455 W. 37th, a TF Cornerstone building. “But they opened up a deli in the fall and a brand new Duane Reade with a little grocery section in it. And a new cafe opened recently, and there are a lot of up-and-coming places on Ninth Avenue.”
“There was no grocery store in the neighborhood when I moved in. Then one opened on 29th and Ninth, and we could get food; we didn’t have to rely on FreshDirect anymore,” Axelrod says.
She notes with irony that since opting to move within the neighborhood, when she and her boyfriend decided to live together, that “there is still no grocery store now that we’re eight blocks up. That’s the one thing the neighborhood is still missing. So we’re back to FreshDirect.”
At least Casa Nonna, a new 8,000-square-foot restaurant, from the BLT chain has opened in the base of Emerald Green, the Glenwood-developed building Axelrod moved into. And Ark Restaurants plans to open an eatery in 505 W. 37th St. These amenities, like Orion’s free breakfast, allow residents to dine without leaving the premises. The developers are creating the neighborhood.
To come are the extension of the 7 train to 11th Avenue and the erection of the Related Companies’ Hudson Yards development, a mixed-use colossus that will drastically change the area, including driving up prices. But for now, rents remain relatively low.
Locher and Turoczy rent a one-bedroom on the 15th floor of 455 W. 37th for about $3,100.
“We looked at other listings in West Side Manhattan — Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen to the Upper West Side,” says Turoczy. “We had a number in mind. We never thought that even for that much money we’d have a dishwasher.”
“We have floor-to-ceiling windows that face east to Empire State and north to the Port Authority, which you wouldn’t think is an interesting view, but it is,” Locher says. “We have a doorman and a roof deck where you can lay out and have brunch with friends.”
Average one-bedroom rental prices in doorman buildings in Midtown West were $3,458, according to MNS’s July Manhattan Rental Report, less than those in most other Manhattan neighborhoods including the Financial District, Battery Park City and even the East Village.
But rents are rising. The newest addition to the area is Related’s MiMA, with 500 rentals and a forthcoming condo component, at 42nd Street between Ninth and 10th. Available studios start at $3,500 a month, one-bedrooms at $4,400, two-bedrooms at $6,600. Most of these are on high floors, but they crush the going rents in the area.
“We are the most expensive in the neighborhood,” says Daria Salusbury, senior vice president of Related. “But I believe we have a value that no one else has.”
People must agree — 94 percent of the 400 units put on the market this spring have rented.
In addition to luxury finishes, washer/dryers and dishwashers in every unit, MiMA (with a location the developers insist is the “middle” of Manhattan) has 44,000-plus square feet of amenities including a basketball court, Equinox gym, roof deck, yoga lawn and screening room.
Daniel and Hannah Close rented a MiMA one-bedroom for $3,900. They got one month’s free rent as a concession and the broker’s fee paid.
“This was the top end of my budget; my rent is more than my mortgage,” says Daniel. The Closes own a five-bedroom house in southwest London.
They relocated for Daniel’s job, choosing MiMA in order to be near Daniel’s workplace at Penn Plaza and because they wanted new construction and lots of amenities.
“The finishes were done to a very high standard; the location is ideal, on our doorstep are restaurants. This makes southwest London look like the countryside,” Hannah says. “These full-amenity buildings don’t exist in London … You can’t find anything of this level, you can barely find a gym.”