By Gus Saltonstall
An Upper West Side residential building just sold for nearly $90 million, according to sale filings and as first reported by The Real Deal.
Pinnacle Group has sold 323 West 96th Street, between West End and Riverside Drive, for $88 million.
The buyer? Lighthouse Group, which is an asset management firm.
The 15-story Upper West Side building, also known as Hudson Park Luxury Rentals, was built in 2001 and has 172 units. On the upper floors, the address has views of the Hudson River. The building also has a 24-hour doorman, a fitness center, a theater room, a roof deck, a children’s playroom, and more.
As reported by The Real Deal, Pinnacle Group was in the news last year after it placed more than 5,000 units, most of which were rent-stabilized, into bankruptcy. The move drew the ire of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who labeled the real estate firm a “slumlord” and unsuccessfully attempted to stop the $451 million auction sale of the bankrupt units.
The 323 West 96th Street building has just four rent-stabilized units, according to filings.
It is unclear what Lighthouse Group plans to do with the Upper West Side building.
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“This is great news!” Said commenters on this forum.
Wow, that’s a steal.
My wife and I currently rent a one bedroom in this area for $3200/month. The rent, which is not stabilized, has consistently been raised about ~8% each year. We’d like to move next spring find a place we can stay long term. “Theatre room” and “roof deck” are enough to know I won’t be affording this spot. How are the young folks supposed to make it work if they don’t make $400k+ a year?
If you can’t afford a $3200 place making half that, you’re doing something wrong. But if you must go cheaper (and I’m all for saving money) there are far cheaper neighborhoods.
Well, there are other areas of the city where the rent is less. By the way, I know people who live on UWS, not in a rent-controlled or rent stabilized apartment, with a salary under $100K per annum.
My parents lived in Jackson Heights as a young couple. Grandparents lived in the Bronx. Can the young folks not making $400k+ a year make that work? Is there something wrong with Crotona Park or being out in Jamaica?
Yes, the commute. People have jobs. If you live an hour away you spend hours of your week commuting instead of with your loved ones. I think most people are not vapid status chasers, they just want to spend more time with their family. Acknowledging that though means acknowledging that there are costs to preservation and the continual fight against tall buildings.
These days I don’t think people would miss their loved ones as much as they might miss their devices. Have you seen couples walking down the street together or having a meal at an upscale restaurant — instead of gazing eye-to-eye they’re gazing at their devices! They even pay more attention to their devices than their beloved dogs (or kids) — see how they walk them? Commuting — probably blissed out with their ‘alone with device’ time and no interruptions!
I would miss the time with my kids if we have to move because of the housing shortage in the neighborhood.
All is not lost. They can take the wonderful and efficient mass transit system, ride a bicycle in January or even take some rent money savings and put it towards paying for a car and congestion pricing. They’ll even be riding the free buses in no time I’m sure. There are millions in the area dealing with the same issues and have for decades.
The problem is — if you pay rent, how can you eat out everyday and order your restaurant meals every night, how can you do without two or three Starbucks per day, how can you afford alcohol and marijuana and vaping, how can you afford the latest cupcake, how can you afford a huge designer dog and its organic food, walker, hairdos! — that’s the problem — poor suffering young people….. My heart goes out to them!
Why are you going after “young people?” Are you just plain jealous? In your (our) day they were yuppies and they did about the same thing as you describe.
So much money wasted. But now – two children later- most of them learned their lesson or moved out of the city.
Same as it ever was.
Landlords have to raise the rents on non-rent controlled apartments by more to offset the huge losses they are taking because they can’t increase rents at all on rent controlled units yet are dealing with huge increases in taxes, utilities, etc.
If landlords could raise rents even slightly on rent controlled apartments (how about pegging increases to 75% of the increase in social security payments or something like that?), it would be a win-win.
Well, the City has been increasing property taxes in this area by ~4-5% per year for the last 20 years so that’s a big chunk of where the money is going.
This building’s property taxes have floated around the same value for the past 16 years which is what is accessible on the NYC property tax website. What’s the point in just posting things that aren’t true?
I’m not sure what this article is about. Is there a larger context?
Are you saying that’s a lot ? Too much? They are slumlords?
Whatever happened to using your own judgement?
I don’t come to the WSR for real estate valuation analysis.
I know this is not important but I’ve always hoped that someone would redesign the facade of that building, it’s about the ugliest building in the neighborhood!!
As big as that building is I’m surprised it was only 90mill
Wow. A little over $500k per unit seems cheap. Unless they are rent controlled units in which case it’s virtually worthless.
And people wonder why our Mayor is focused on “affordability?” If you look at the actual stats, you will see that there is very little “wealth flight” (despite the hyperbolic predictions) but an enormous amount of “working and middle class flight,” due to being priced out of the City.