SOHO

President’s long-time lawyer got D.A. to drop Trump SoHo investigation.

New York’s first zero-waste residential building is coming to Soho.

Lawsuit erupts when a business suit replaces a painter’s smock in a Soho co-op.

Sale of ground floor space nets a $28 million windfall.

In a Soho that has changed for the worse, shareholders agree to sell.

Restoration of the cast-iron facade reveals a gem's luster.

This time, a co-op’s shareholders decided to take the money and run. Two weeks after a Brooklyn Heights co-op turned down a developer’s $130 million offer to buy their commercial space and erect a 40-story condo tower, the residents of a co-op at 61-63 Crosby Street in Soho have sold their building for $42 million to L3 Capital, a Chicago-based investment firm that plans to turn the cast-iron jewel into an office building.

“The co-op owners decided to take some chips off the table and move out,” says Adelaide Polsinelli of Eastern Consolidated, who represented the buyer in the deal.

The 20,600-square-foot Crosby Street building, located between Spring and Broome Streets, was erected in 1876 and converted to a co-op in 1981, according to the Real Deal. It contained seven loft apartments and a ground-floor retail space most recently occupied by the clothier Carson Street. The building comes with 6,500 square feet of air rights.

When an explosion in the East Village left two people dead and three buildings in ruins last year, New Yorkers got a grisly reminder just how serious - and deadly - gas leaks can be. So when a worker at the Ronald Feldman Fine Arts gallery in Soho smelled gas a few months after the East Village explosion, everyone went on high alert.

The fire department rushed to the elegant cast-iron building at 31-33 Mercer Street, a five-story, 12-unit co-op that's home to the Feldman gallery and an eclectic mix of artists, architects, writers and photographers - the kind of people who used to live in Soho before it became a sprawling shopping mall. The building's gas was immediately shut off. Crews from Con Ed and the city's Department of Buildings (DOB) arrived, beginning an ordeal that would spiral into a "nightmare," in the words of the co-op board's president.

But this nightmare inspired some creative financial thinking that got the building healthy - and safe - while saving the shareholders a pile of money.

Soho is getting it's own Flatiron Building. The boat-shaped structure at 10 Sullivan Street is almost complete. Curbed writes that the 16-story, 203-foot-tall structure will have 22 condos, ground floor retail, and — are you ready? — parking. Considering how many parking lots in and out of the city are vanishing to make way for condos, that's pretty neat. The Cary Tamarkin-designed project, which is being developed by Property Markets Group and Madison Equities, "has been billed as 'the highest residence in all of Soho.'" Well the highest is the $45 million 8,359-square-foot triplex penthouse, which boasts a 23-foot-tall ceiling, two wraparound balconies, a roof deck, and a private pool. It's good to be the king.

Photo of 10 Sullivan Street via New York YIMBY.

In a corner in Soho rises a six-story development — a boutique condominium, which is the posh way of saying, "Don't expect a whole lot of space." In the case of 52 Wooster, potential buyers should also not expect a whole lot of amenities, save for some complimentary storage in the basement. No pet spas, no gym, no playground. The developer spins it as "a move that decisively bucks a trend" and that touts more of "a private-home feeling." But as Jane Gol, the president of Continental Ventures — the condo's developer — points out to The New York Times, people can go outside to find the things they need. Pet spas and gyms are a dime a dozen in Soho, so that's the place to be if you're building isn't bursting with a load of extras. Despite having "to contend with a shoehorn-tight construction site at the corner of Broome Street," the site measures about 100 feet long and 25 feet wide. The space was a former parking lot, and to make up for the lack of amenities, "Continental is maximizing the apartment layouts, making them as sweeping as those in the older lofts found throughout the neighborhood." The units go on sale this month. How much? Around $2,500 a square foot — or $5 million for the three-bedrooms, and it will be move-in ready by next year.

Rendering from Kim Wendell Design