imagine buying the Flatiron at auction. fucking wild and congrats to the new owner. now don't fuck this up.

Kinda offtopic but why does it have those wooden bamboo structures around it? I remember seeing it in 2021 and it still was there the last time I saw it in January.

Is it for support? Or was it just coincidence that every time I go there they are getting some work done?

There has been scheduled on the building for 4+ years

For some reason this is less than I expected for the building - it's a historical and super iconic piece of history.

Sounds like a deal hahaha

Would love to see it rejuvenated and scaffolding free before I leave NYC.

I'm sure it probably warrants at least that much in repairs and upgrades to update and to comply with LPC and other City bodies. Those costs are priced in.

Nice. The Continental can finally come to fruition.

Already exists - The Beaver Building at 1 Wall Street

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it has $190 million in repairs given the cost of construction and restoration in NYC. Good luck to the winner haha

Also important to remember that owning the building is not the same as owning the land on which it sits.

Where did you find that this building has a land lease? I haven't seen anything to that nature.

The article said it needs $100MM in repairs.

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I may have been thinking about the ESB.

So, 60 million less than the cost of one penthouse on Billionaires Row. Crazy.

why does that seem like...so much lower than i would expect a famous NYC building to go for? Shit has me thinking I was only a few bucks away

Ah shoot, how did I miss the auction? Dammit. I was so close too, I’m short $189,999,900 and change from what was in my wallet.

E: from the article…

"I didn't want to miss this iconic moment," said Tom Brady, a real estate broker from Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

I see Tom is staying busy in retirement.

A nice fixer upper with a park across the way

Chrysler Building is a famous example of a land-leased iconic building

Cooper Union owns that land, right? I seem to remember something about that being a major source of revenue for them.

They might have bought the building only, and not the land. That brings the value down if they have to make large rent payments to the landowner.

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>For some reason this is less than I expected for the building

Me too.

Honestly 190 million for the fucking Flatiron building seems cheap? I’m not in the business of buying building but, damn

$850/sf for a fully vacant office building is an obscene overpayment. Likely that the only economically viable business plan is to convert to condos.

First thought was it's a steal when you consider that the high level apartments on billionaire's row went for hundred million range.

It needs a shitload of work. Even in 2019 when it was still occupied it was pretty horrible inside -- and that was after a bunch of retrofits.

It's also landmarked, so everything costs more.

Trying to renovate and retrofit a landmarked building and bring it up to modern standards is hard. And risky. And time consuming. And expensive as shit.

So… why was a building of this significance sold at an auction? Who was the previous owner

the thing with ALL these iconic landmarks is that the internal infrastructure is a fucking mess, so any bid is taking into account the 9 figures they're gonna have to spend un-fucking it

Could be. Maybe in a few years it will be seen as cheap. Who knows.

Or maybe the buyer is just a big fan of The Boys and wants to pretend to hunt supes

It was co-owned by a bunch of people and there was a dispute between them, so an auction was ordered by the courts.

Which is nuts, didn’t they just do a decade of work on it?

Great bones. Bring your architect!

Yup! Cooper Union, and it’s quite lucrative (if I’m remembering correctly)

So… why don’t you read the article?

Thankfully it was bought by an American, not a foreign company.

Needed repairs and renovations.

Condos in flatiron would sell for a huge premium. I cant imagine a bigger flex for NYC than saying “I live in the Flatiron”

Apparently it needs $100M in renovations... the scaffolding isn't going anywhere.

I used to work there and everyone would lose their minds when I told them

That's 220k sq ft, if converted into 115 condos of approximately 2000 sqft, taking into account 100m of renovations needed (mentioned by another comment) they would have to sell for 2.6m each to break even, probably more like 3-4m each. or more condos of smaller size... might work 🤷

I’d buy the Flatiron just to turn it into the daily bugle

Damn look at Richie Rich over here with $100 in his wallet

Not lucrative enough. The school was always intended to be 100% free, and it was until 2012. They hope to get back to that by 2030.

Thats cheap

Also the reason it’s famous (it’s crazy shape on a triangular lot) makes the floor layouts awful.

And Columbia used to own Rockefeller Center’s land.

Yea I plan on being here 18ish more months so I know the odds are not at all in my favor.

A guy can dream tho…. 😂😂😂

Brand new 2k sq ft in the flatiron building would go for well above 3m. Probably closer to 6m, with ~$3k/sqft. With the risk of construction/condo dev it seems like a reasonable buy.

That thing is not selling for 250m lmao. They're just putting it at that price for the marketing

Why don’t I get invited to these things?

I remember it briefly in 2013/2014 ;(

23 skidoo!

Hopefully this won't affect Butcher and the boys finally taking down Vought.

Seriously, when was that scaffolding put up?

I feel like building a new flatiron would have been faster.

I worked in offices in there from time to time and it seemed fine to me… but I maybe am used to old buildings.

I … kinda … like? … the condos idea?

Yeah American oligarchs are the best

Needs a little TLC

Easier for me to ask the question and ppl like you can spend your time answering.

I used to work in the Flatiron, and the building was a mess on the interior and an absolute fire hazard (we had a firefighter do a drill, and he was like..."just pray to God there isn't a fire"). Everything was coated in dust constantly, no matter how much it was cleaned. No idea where it came from. And the plumbing/heating...

$190 million feels right for how much work is going to need to be done for it to be livable, let alone luxurious.

That’s it?

Yes it’s iconic, it also means it’s landmarked and there’s no way in hell to build anything on the land or modify it much at all. The fact that it’s oddly shaped means it’s difficult to use. I don’t think it’s gonna be much of a revenue generator.

Im guessing the cost isnt to fix but to re-imagine the interior and space use. IE, it can be a perfectly good office floor but if you want to convert it to condos its going to cost a shit ton of money. Shop front additions, modern office spaces, etc

The thing is, it’s landmarked, thus it’s impossible to do significant development.

The Flatiron building is one of the most photographed, non-high-rise buildings in NYC.

now J. Jonah Jameson can finally nab that menace spiderman!

It’s not gonna be good as a condo. The weird shape of the building significantly limits the shape of the building. Not to mention it’s landmarked. It’s also iconic, meaning there’ll be people taking pictures outside constantly. Lastly, it’s on 23rd, and not exactly luxury real estate.

The actual luxury buildings in the area sit on 22nd and are nice and quiet while still having park view.

Are you serious? It’s like saying, “I work in ESB”, like ok?

I own a townhouse in Manhattan is a significantly bigger flex. Not to mention Flatiron district is actually not great to live in, and the price reflects it.

You significantly overestimate the amount of wealthy people who want to live on 23rd, and in a building where tourists are constantly outside taking pictures.

Sure but single units HAVE sold for north of 190 million so the interesting comparison remains...interesting. in 2019 a penthouse over there sold for 238 million. Ka-ching.

No, I don't. Flatiron new developments are going for $2k-$4k/sqft right now and they are having no trouble clearing inventory (flatiron house for ex). Also owning a 5m property is not that selectively "wealthy" for a location as central as 23rd. It's a lot, sure, but there's also a lot of wealthy people in this city

Because it’s literally in the flatiron district. Which is not a highly desired residential neighborhood.

I really think they made a huge mistake making that a triplex instead of one full floor and a duplex.

Home grown oligarchs do tend to be better than foreign ones, yes.

Not that they're so much better as to have crossed the line into good, but still better

Yeah I know but that thing is literally just not worth 250m. Like 220cps sold the top 4 floors for less than that for more square footage, not to mention 220cps is way most costly per sqft

The building already has 2 duplexes and like 15 full floor units lol. I think 107 & 127 are duplexes and then everything in between those are full floors. They might split, anyway. A lot of high end buildings will split their units up if they don't sell fast enough and they lose patience

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Historic landmark status makes repairs more expensive since they need to preserve a lot of the old building design and materials and you're restricted on the types of renovations that are allowed.

the only thing i dont like about it is i wouldnt be able to afford the penthouse.

Converting the floor plans for use as condos could be a little awkward, but I have to think it would be easier than converting the postwar super wide office towers to condos, no?

Even still. If you need 60 mil in repairs you're still at the same price as one of the billionaire's row penthouses. Given the choice, I know what I'm spending my tax return on.

Not sure what your first sentence has to do with anything I said. I didn’t say it didn’t have any of those things.

My point is they should have gone with one full floor and a duplex, thus lowering the price point so they’ll be easier to sell, people willing to drop 100m for an apartment is already slim pickings and 250m is even smaller even for NY.

What could happen is these two are on the market, and if someone actually does want a triplex, they buy both and combine them. Doing a triplex makes their options much more limited.

Also, in terms of them splitting, it’s certainly a possibility. However, they built themselves into a corner as they’re not designed to be two apartments. The first floor doesn’t have a BR worthy of being a primary. Second floor doesn’t have a kitchen nor living room. This will require significant work to convert not to mention moving of plumbing.

It would be impossible to build with modern construction techniques.

There aren't many interior landmarks registered with the LPC, and this building is not one of them. Exterior landmarks are required to preserve the facade and appearance; you can still do significant upgrades and modifications to the interior.

I literally said none of what you said.

> it’s impossible to do significant development.

Changing the building's interior layout, utilities, demising walls, or changing the use represents significant development. You can do these things with LPC designation. You'd apply for a Certificate of No Effect, if I recall from the few times I did this as a project manager in the city.

Edit: The original poster changed their tune and claimed it couldn't be developed into a tower. They'd still be wrong though; see Hearst Tower as an example.

Again, I said nothing of what you said. Im aware of what LPC does I’m currently dealing with them for my building. I’m talking about “significant development” meaning turning it into a tower. Not sure why you’re still confused.

Yeah but these buildings are not priced to sell. They're priced to price. If they wanted to price to sell there woudl be no full floor units they would just cram 7 2 bedrooms on every floor. They price to price on purpose, because it's an investment building not a residential building. Literally nothing about standard residential development or real estate dynamics applies here. You talking about "2nd floor doesn't have a kitchen and that's weird" like whoever buys the top 3 floors of this building give a shit about the cost of building a kitchen. Who is buying the top two floors and being like "damn it I have to spend $2M and wait 9 months for my kitchen, to move in!"

the biggest flex would be I live in a pizza shaped studio

not sure if you are trolling are actually just very dull

Damn, I didn’t even know it was up for bid!

Old building with a pretty small floor plate and limited space for modern amenities/utilities that tenants demand.

Any renovations or uses need to preserve it historically.

I think that price is kinda high. Going to be hard to recoup that money unless people pay to look at it from the street.

Even in a hot market it would be tough to find commercial tenants who want to be there. Today? Nobody would pay what would be needed just to cover day to day operations.

You'd be lucky if they started the renovations within 18 months.

I remember the scaffolding going up right before Covid so over 3 years now…fucking gross

Yeah for sure. A huge problem with converting most office buildings to residential is that NYC requires a window for every bedroom; shouldn't be an issue for the Flatiron bldg.

Given the crash in office retail leasing, personally if I was a business owner I'd look for quality Class A office space in a newer building than stuff in an ancient one with weird angles, $190m could take a long ass time to recoup lol

The only people nowadays looking to fill weird office space is maybe WeWork, this is gonna be riskier than investing in a quality, newer building that is in a better state of repairs and can more reliably attract tenants. Idt potential tenants are gonna be super keen to be stuck in a building with scaffolding blocking windows and endless reno work on it lol

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Closer to 18 years than 18 months

These billionaires aren't buying for square footage, they're buying for bragging rights.

It's also why 432 Park was all the rage at first until it was revealed how badly built everything is.

Edit: All that said, put me in an apartment about 100 feet over the city and I'm content. I can do observation decks, but living at that height? I don't think Michael Jacksons doctor could calm me.

Hahaha good point - I remember I visited another building shaped like the flatiron in the past and that weird corner fit like maybe a single (expensive) chair.

That being said, I feel like there's some sticking power to the building, whether it becomes a museum of some sort of niche event space.

Here's to hoping this buyer is a super fan of the flat iron and regards like like one might a Van Gogh painting...but which continues to cost additional money each year

So the building is 121 years old and it makes me wonder if it'd be better/cheaper to just raze it and build a replica/similar style in its place using modern materials with perhaps apartments or event space (better for the odd floor plates maybe?). This is a good thought experiment moment on the nature of landmark preservation. If the interiors and facades are gut renovated anyways, is it still really the same building? If you completely rebuilt it you could make a new building that'll last another 100 years instead of constantly repairing the current one.

"I work in ESB" is a dunk on everyone who doesn't live here.

"I own a townhome in UWS/WV/Chelsea is a dunk on everyone who lives here.

hell yeah, let's knock this baby down and build some modern condos

>in 2019 a penthouse over there sold for 238 million

Do you have any credible sources for this? This site states that the most expensive home sale in 2019 was a $98 million, 5 story penthouse.

I thought the same thing. I've never been inside though and I imagine it's pretty outdated.

Summer or fall 2019.

I thought they already reversed it?

You'll be able to afford one of the units that opens up when the city's wealthier residents do their hermit crab dance up to the flatiron building.

Guy moves into the Flatiron, guy 2 moves into that guy's old place, yaffa yadda yadda, you move into guy 10,000's old place

I'm sure it'd be cheaper but I bet the materials would be worse

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/24/nyregion/238-million-penthouse-sale.html

Its real. He was supposed to move to NYC and at the time it seemed like "HQ" was going to move to NYC. I worked for Kenny G at the time.

I hate that word "re-imagine"

Nice, thank you.

Normally developers like to have sell out be 2x hard and soft costs when underwriting a deal. The numbers don’t always work out that way (overruns, market conditions etc) but that’s the pro forma

I dunno who else you expect to buy a building for 200m and then spend another 150 on repairs for it..? Or should we just not have any expensive buildings?

https://streeteasy.com/building/one-madison

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Uh, you’re literally proving my point? I was referring to both One Madison and MSP Tower, both of which have their entrance on 22nd, a much quieter street, not that you’d know. I’ve literally been on top of both.

Also, please stop spamming me with the same stuff thanks.

Have you tried to re-imagine what the word could be like if you didn't hate it?

trickle down housing

Can they put up lights on it now to properly identify it as the headquarters of the Daily Bugle?

Think you’re wrong on most accounts but I guess we’ll see

It is lucrative enough. It was just financial tomfoolery by the board that caused them to have revenue issues.

It’s not that cheap. Only about 200k rentable square feet so over $900/rsf.

Wonder if they will try to make it something other than office space. Floors are odd but could lend well to resi

It probably has a lot of upkeep which scared people away

The view is definitely awesome but honestly if I had effectively infinite money give me a townhouse to myself any day of the week.

They aren't buying for any of those, it's just an investment. You're overthinking this. Ken griffin doesn't give two shits what other billionaires think about his property, he just believes that 220cps is a good investment, and whether or not he lives there, it has been a good investment. Property is a great place to park money, all things considered.

You joke but it's a real thing

Now obviously boutique condo conversions like this have less impact than larger housing developments, but new supply is still a good thing

Another viable business plan is laundering Russian money.

That's definitely bare minimum. I imagine a good investment would be $150mil ballpark

> Honestly 190 million for the fucking Flatiron building seems cheap?

The building has 255,000 sq ft and it comes to $745 per sq ft. Actually cheap for Manhattan where median price for a building is $1,450/sq ft. Add on the $100 million restoration costs and you're still in the ballpark of Manhattan real estate at $1,135.

Yeah I read the title and I was like "That's it?"

Reconfigure?

This presumes the higher end housing is actually going to NYC residents. And maybe Flatiron would. But some of the luxury market is functionally geared to foreign wealth sheltering and money laundering. I think that needs to be factored into NYC's luxury housing model as well.

The biggest flex would be to convert the building to a homeless shelter, low middle income and artist housing. I don’t need profit!

Also who is this Jacob Garlick guy?

truth be told I can’t even afford a pent house in Jersey city

Sounds like you’re agreeing with the guy above.

Most in the industry think its a crazy high number for the building. Likely a condo conversion play.

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Including Jeffrey Epstein’s brother

https://commercialobserver.com/2023/03/flatiron-building-garlick-auction-deposit-new-york/

Off to a great start. Guy is a fucking loser

It’s actually an overpay by more than 2x if the intention was to redevelop it as a class A office building.

Assuming its fully redeveloped and gets top of the market rents (which it won’t since the floor plates are inefficient and the ceilings are too low) of ~$100/RSF, it should have ~$70/RSF in net operating income which at a 5% cap rate is $1,400/sf exit value. Going in at $750/sf with $400/sf in redevelopment costs plus $100/sf in financing and operating shortfalls leaves you at a ~$1,250/sf total cost basis, 40% of which is equity for a total of $500/sf, which means your $150/sf entrepreneurial profit is a 0.3x multiple on invested equity. A deal of this level of risk would typically command a minimum of a 2.0x multiple, and that’s not even factoring the amount of time it would take to go through the redevelopment process and try to lease the full building up when the office market is in the shitter. It’s actually hilarious that so many people on here seem to think that this was a “good deal” when the buildings current owner and profiling Nyc landlord Jeff gural himself said that it was probably not worth more than $80 million. Jacob Garlick probably realized this sometime after having his day in the paper as he forgot to send in the court mandated 10% deposit by the deadline last Friday.