New York City's construction boom went bust so fast some of the condominium buildings are standing unfinished. But proposals to turn them into affordable housing units have been a tough sell. Alisa Roth reports.
Chipotle founder and co-CEO Steven Ells made his fortune in other lucky parts of the country before finally slowly introducing his Mexican-burrito chain to New York. But he's taking on personal real estate at the heart of the city, in Manhattan's West Village, in a veritable full-court press. Curbed discovered that Ells has purchased, in the last two years:
• 92 Jane Street: A 5,000-square-foot landmark with a minimalist interior that set him back $13.4 million.
• The penthouse at 40 Fifth Avenue: This four-bedroom, four-bathroom palace with a killer view, which he purchased from Village Voice founding publisher Ed Fancher, only cost him $11 million.
It was the rhythm of the real estate boom: As apartment rents throughout the city soared, more New Yorkers flooded East Harlem, formerly dominated by Italian and Hispanic residents, looking for affordable apartments. Soon developers eager to cash in on East Harlem’s revival followed, building thousands of new apartments. Then small-business owners like Andre Mauro, 27, and his brother, Matthew, 23, profited as they rented out more of the neighborhood’s old and new spaces.
Now the Mauro brothers — along with the developers they worked for and the tenants they rented to — are feeling the pinch of the recession. Andre Mauro described how the neighborhood where they live and work is suffering.
At the height of the real estate bubble in 2006, an investment group led by New York City real estate firm Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty Advisors paid $5.4 billion for a pair of gigantic Manhattan apartment complexes known as Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.
The price seemed outrageous to many, but the company believed it had a winning strategy: It would aggressively convert thousands of rent-regulated apartments occupied by middle-class families into luxury units that would fetch top dollar.
