Another Luxury Condo Coming to the East Village

Dec. 30, 2015 — Douglas Steiner of Brooklyn’s Steiner Studios has secured a $130 million construction loan from Bank of America Merrill Lynch to erect an 82-unit luxury condo building in the once-crusty, ever-glitzier East Village.

Steiner, who lives in the East Village, told Commercial Observer  that luxury condos in the neighborhood are “not the oxymoron people might have thought it was 15 or 20 years ago. We’ve seen a huge pent-up demand for luxury services in the East Village, and only a few have been done.”

Steiner acquired the property at 438 E. 12th St. for $41 million in 2012 from Mary Help of Christians Church. The site, which housed a church, rectory and private school, was originally intended as a 158-unit rental building with 22 of the units set aside as affordable under the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s Inclusionary Housing Program.

Score another one for luxury over affordability.