Location: 232 East 118th Street (btwn Second and Third Avenues)
Size: 12 "sculptural" lofts within its six stories; rooftop garden
Prices: $475,000 to $695,000 for the released listings
Architect: Peter L. Gluck
Sales & Marketing: Corcoran/Valerie Dominguez
Lowdown: Has Harlem's status as a hot selling point cooled significantly? Last summer we briefly looked at La Casa Brava, which was scheduled to be open in the fall of '06 in all its Switch Building-esque glory. If you check out the cached description through Vertical City Realty, you'll see that the building's location, East Harlem, is mentioned twice. Now Corcoran has taken over the sales and marketing, and the new strategy is two-fold: drop the "La" in La Casa Brava, and de-Harlemize it. On the Casa Brava site, you'll find no mention of Harlem whatsoever. Not in the building's description, not on the neighborhood map and not in the multi-page neighborhood guide. Actually, the way they keep referring to "this neighborhood" and "the location" is kinda creepy. There's a "catered grand opening" on Sunday, but we're not sure all of these moves will do much to sell the lofts, which have some floorplans we're really not feelin'. Eight-feet-wide bedrooms? Hardly enough for our pole vaulting supplies (it's a hobby).
· Casa Brava [Official Site]
· Listings: Casa Brava [Corcoran]
· A96 #2: La Casa Brava in East Harlem [Curbed]
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