Location: 28 East 10th Street at University Place
Size: 131 units and shrinking
Prices: 7 listings so far, from an 806-square-foot 1BR/1BA for $1.05M to a 2,720-square-foot 4BR/3.5BA for $4.75M
Developer: Cheshire Group/Sterling American Property
Architects: Emery Roth (c. 1928), ARCT Architecture and Victoria Hagan (interiors)
Sales & Marketing: Stribling
Lowdown: The blockbuster condo conversion of the Central Village's Devonshire House has its first big controversy. The Wilpons snapped up the pre-war rental building before Bernie made off with their money, and the market-rate renters were soon excised without much of a fuss. Even the remaining rent-stabilized tenants have been largely quiet. But the lobby! Emery Roth's crazy creation of faux wood, family crests and Corinthian columns is being seriously messed with, and that has some folks ticked off. When told the faux-wood floor was being replaced with a checkerboard, the building's previous owner told the NYT, "That could be fairly atrocious." But a tipster sent along a current shot of the lobby renovation (above), and the floor could be a lot worse, right? And besides, there's bigger Dev news to get to.
The website for the conversion has recently gone live, and there are all sorts of goodies, including model unit photos and a handful of floorplans and prices (Stribling's listings aren't online yet). Crews have been busy tearing apart and combining units for months?the Devonshire was originally all 1BRs and 2BRs?and the results show: The early examples are already winning raves on StreetEasy.
As for prices, a polished pre-war gem like this would've easily commanded jaw-dropping prices back in the good ol' days, but now we'll classify them only as eye-popping: most units are between $1,300 to $1,600 per foot, and the one 4BR, 3.5A unit currently listed creeps all the way up to $1,746/sf (albeit on the second floor, so prices have the potential to go way higher). The renovation of the building will add a landscaped roof deck, concierge, gym, playroom, refrigerated lobby storage and a renewed focus on the interior courtyard. It's an Uptown vibe in a Downtown locale, in a city that greatly needs a success story. So how will it sell?
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