As the Second Avenue subway marks its first six months in operation, developers have taken note.
“What was the overwhelming encumbrance of that area? It was the lack of mass transportation,” said Nikki Field, an associate broker with Sotheby’s International Realty and a longtime agent in the district. “Now, properties are going to move.”
Along the new subway route, which extended the Q line through the Yorkville neighborhood, more than a dozen rentals and condos are planned or underway, according to analyses from Halstead Property Development Marketing and Brown Harris Stevens Development Marketing.
And, some existing buildings between First and Third Avenues, from East 63rd to East 96th Streets, are seeing values climb, too, brokers and developers point out.
Developers, of course, have flocked there for other reasons. Indeed, the fact that the area had been service-starved meant that land, until recently, was relatively cheap, a situation that can translate into reduced prices for buildings yet to be completed.
“This is sort of on the fringe,” said Michael Belkin, a partner at Wonder Works Development Group, which is erecting Vitre, a glassy 21-story condo rising at 302 East 96th Street, just east of Second Avenue.
Offering finish work like Italian cabinetry, and amenities like a second-story lounge that opens to a fenced-in patio, the building has 48 one- to three-bedroom apartments with prices starting at $915,000, Mr. Belkin said. Sales began last month at Vitre, which will open in summer 2018.
The developers, who bought the site in 2015 for $22 million, according to city records, considered it a bargain relative to places like TriBeCa or Chelsea. But they didn’t come just for the subway, which opened to the public on Jan. 1, 2017. “It wasn’t the primary determining factor,” Mr. Belkin said, “though it definitely came into our thoughts.”
Since then, however, Vitre seems to have embraced its location. Adorning its website is a large photo of the new vaultlike glass subway entrance at East 96th, about a minute from Vitre’s front door.
The subway, which began its most recent phase of construction in 2008, has helped drive up prices. On June 23, the average sale price in the Second Avenue corridor was $1,486 a square foot, the highest level in five years, according to CityRealty, which tracks apartment sales.
CityRealty analyzed 28 buildings in the area, including Carnegie Park, from the Related Companies, at 200 East 94th Street, and the Charles, from Bluerock Real Estate, at 1355 First Avenue, both of which opened in 2015.
Long considered a more affordable region on the Upper East Side because of its distance from the Lexington Avenue line, Yorkville apartments have typically sold for about 20 percent less than those located west of Third Avenue, Ms. Field said. But “the gap is absolutely narrowing.”
The gradual escalation of prices, which also can be explained in terms of a recovery from the last downturn, has been apparent on a personal level for Shai Shustik, a developer who lives at 300 East 71st Street, a red brick co-op near the new East 72nd Street subway stop.
In 2007, Tali Haddad, whom Mr. Shustik would later marry, bought a one-bedroom in the building for $520,000, he said. From within the third-floor unit, which faced Second Avenue, the subway construction sounded like a “bombing,” said Mr. Shustik, who stayed there often.
Six years later, in 2013, Ms. Haddad, who by then had become Ms. Shustik, sold the unit for $685,000 as construction was still plodding along. They made money on the deal, but the value was hurt by a two-story temporary structure that served as an office for subway workers, which blocked views from the window, Mr. Shustik said.
Once the subway opened and the structure came down, prices went up, though overall market conditions may also have played a part. Indeed, in May of this year, the apartment sold again for $900,000, according to property records, representing about a 30 percent spike in just four years. “I was definitely shocked they were able to achieve that number,” Mr. Shustik said.
Mr. Shustik, who works as the principal of Manhattan Residential, a development firm that owns several rental buildings in nearby East Harlem, is now undertaking a project closer to home.
Company: Vitre
Contact No: (212) 319-2996
Contact Email: info@vitreny.com
Address :302 East 96th Street, New York, NY, 10128
Website : http://vitreny.com/
