Sales Halted at 20 Henry

By on March 6, 2009 11:07 am in Development, Landmark Preservation, News, Real Estate

20henry-rendering

This just in: Sales are temporarily suspended at the luxury condo development at 20 Henry Street, pending completion of the building’s construction by next fall.

The marketing firm, Halstead, took the online listings down on Tuesday night as part of a company-wide sales strategy to hold sales until the building is more complete and potential buyers can see the actual units, said the building’s spokeswoman, Jill Feldman. Halstead’s executive director Steve Kliegerman has been advising clients to make this move since at least December.

“One of the major factors hindering sales right now is a lot of developments don’t have a model unit or on-site sales office where people can go inside and see what it’s actually going to look like,” Feldman said. “It’s very difficult to complete the sales process because people more and more today don’t want to buy off these floorplans.”

20 Henry does have a model unit at the nearby sales office at 114 Henry St., but potential buyers can only see the apartments’ fixtures and floors — and it’s not the same, she added.

The 38 units — which, at one point, ranged in price from $580,000 to $2.56 million — will be back on the market within the next six to nine months. And that construction is plugging along, Feldman said last month.

Some contracts for units have already been signed, but Feldman declined to say how many.

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  • Billy Reno

    Yeah, this would have nothing to do with the economy.

  • http://mermaidsonparade.blogspot.com melanie hope greenberg

    So many working artists were forced out of that building. This is not progress.

  • Neighborhood Observer

    It’s a sad state of affairs — for the now departed artists who lost their homes and for the people living in the adjacent buildings facing Poplar. Further, the sidewalks around the site are a mess – broken along Poplar and Henry with lots of litter. Concerned people should start calling 311.

  • http://flickr.com/photos/theyardie/298366254/ David

    working artists are bums! trust me i am one.

  • nabeguy

    Yeah, but even bums deserve a decent place to live.

  • jiker

    it really is a shame what had happened to the artists who used to live there. this city doesn’t care about affordable housing just million dollar condos.

  • nate

    I have to admit that I don’t cry crocodile tears about the artists who lived here with generous subsidies for decades, but I truly hope that this building is renovated and restored. I would hate to see another period of insurance fires like the 1970’s and 80’s. To this day I believe the Margaret Hotel fire was interntional.

  • Andrew Porter

    Tell us, Nate, where were the insurance fires of the 70s and 80s in the Heights?

  • chris

    The insurance fires of the 70s and 80s? The Margaret was one. I’d say the St. George was another.

    I can recall at least one other suspicious fire on Columbia Heights, and I think Remsen St too, back then.

    And as for the artists in 20 Henry, the owner of that building was given a 20 year abatement to use it as low income housing. The owner made no bones about his desire to sell once the 20 years were up. Guess what happened? 20 years went by, the artists who knew they would have to leave never made plans and the owner sold the building.

    It’s not the owner’s fault the artists thought their 20 year entitlement would last forever. They had plenty of warning and made no effort to find themselves alternate housing until it was too late. No sympathy for them.

  • Jazz

    If you over 30 and not making a living as an artist you are a hobbyist.

  • Karl Junkersfeld

    “One of the major factors hindering sales right now is a lot of developments don’t have a model unit or on-site sales office where people can go inside and see what it’s actually going to look like,” Feldman said.

    How silly is this statement. There are no sales anywhere especially in new developments. If this was being built 2-3 years ago, it would of been sold out within a week sight unseen.

    My guess is when they reopen sales office they will have more realistic prices to reflect the new economic reality in NYC. Selling for 1000 psf is absurd considering you either get the buzz from the bridge on the Poplar side or the ugly view of that huge building on Henry across the street or the noise of the sirens from the fire department across the street on Middaugh.

    True price should be somewhere around $650 psf only because it is located in the best nabe in the city.

  • ABC

    if they sell for $650 psf, I’ll be buying

  • Karl Junkersfeld

    Get your check out.

    $480,000 for a 738 square foot one bedroom is about right in this environment.

  • ABC

    $650K for a 1000 sq ft two bedroom/two bath sounds like a pretty good deal to me. One bedrooms never sound like a good deal to me.

  • Jim and Anita K. (former tenants)

    To set the record straight, former tenants at 20 Henry Street paid market rent for their studio apartments. When we moved there in 1977 we paid $402 per month for our studio, market rent at the time.

    It was the landlord who got the tax breaks and was generously subsidized by our government to renovate this building for artists, a building he bought for $5,500 down and never paid more than interest on the secondary mortgage. But the rents were so high then that anyone who could afford them, whether artist or not, was given an apartment.

    It was the real estate bubble of the late 90s that convinced the landlord to forcibly evict the entire building so he could cash in and turn affordable housing into luxury condos.

    Rumors now abound that the tenants were squatters and not legitimate tenants. We all had leases, some were even rent-stabilized, and our incomes were checked yearly. When our landlord refused to renew leases in 2003 we fought him in the courts, but were ultimately unsuccessful in our bid to save our homes.

    Some of the comments that take the tenants to task for sucking the welfare tit get it just exactly backwards. It was the landlord who, for a few thousand dollars down and minimal renovation, got millions of taxpayer dollars to play with during the 80s and 90s–investing in a dud art gallery in Soho and a lifestyle magazine–and then when the time was ripe, making a killing with his buyout clause. We only hope that the chickens have come home to roost for the speculators who now own the building.

  • ABC

    It was in the Mitchell-Lama program, right? I guess I’m not up to speed, but how was it both “market rent”? Why would they check income for that?

    I’m all for Mitchell-Lama and for public/private programs like it, but I think in order for them to work all sides have to agree to the term limits.

    Also, what the owner bought it for, sold it for, spend his/her money on is none of my business and only reminds me what a pitiful state the neighborhood was in the 1970s (and why we all should have bought buildings then!)

  • dan

    So are they going to clear that mess of a construction site up or just leave it the way it is? It’s been obvious for a while no work is being done but when will they pull down the scaffolding and give us our sidewalk back?