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A dozen apartments on the Upper West Side have been vacant for roughly three decades, stacked on four floors directly above a supermarket plenty of neighbors walk past every day. A Brooklyn developer just paid $28 million for the building, and the broker who handled the sale says those empty units are well suited for conversion into condos.
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The building is 500 Columbus Avenue, a five-story property between 84th and 85th streets with a Gristedes anchoring the ground floor. Brooklyn-based Terra Developers bought it from CKMR Corporation, the entity formerly known as Sloan’s Supermarkets, according to Commercial Observer, which first reported the deal.Bob Knakal of BKREA, who represented the seller alongside colleague Jake Hulsh, told Commercial Observer that the 12 units above the store have been empty for 30 years and are well positioned for conversion into condominiums. The BKREA listing also raised the possibility of expanding upward on the 10,217-square-foot corner lot.
Terra hasn’t said what it intends to do. Yevgeniy Lvovskiy, CEO of ZHL Group, confirmed the purchase on Terra’s behalf but didn’t disclose any plans for the site. The transaction was financed with a $25 million loan arranged by Newmark.
The building runs 35,300 square feet in all. Besides Gristedes, its ground floor houses Park West Laundromat and a shoe repair shop.
The seller’s history on that corner runs deep. The property last changed hands in the 1970s, when it went to an entity of Sloan’s Supermarkets, founded by the Sloan and Meyer families.
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