The magazine The Real Deal offers a window on the past of New York real estate. In the current issue it reports on the how the federal government rejected 21 bids from private investors who were interested in purchasing Ellis Island, 55 years ago this month.
In 1954, the federal government stopped using the island – which famously served as a gateway to 12 million immigrants for 65 years as they entered into the country. Two years later it was ...

The most ambitious downtown project in development now is 56 Leonard Street in Tribeca. The building will be a 60-story glass tower, comprising 145 units, which will make its immediate neighbors look like dwarves. It has a very special design with differently shaped floor plans that make it look like the Jenga game (the one where players take turns to remove a block from a tower of wooden blocks and balance it on top).
The project was in the works ...

Prices continue to go up in downtown — below 34th Street — as buyers flock to this area. According to The Corcoran Group report, median sales prices in new developments there are up 51% versus this time last year. For the first time in a decade in the fourth quarter of 2012, the average asking price in the downtown luxury market (the top 10% of co-op and condo transactions) overtook uptown and midtown. Luxury pads ...

According to the New York Post, 7 Bryant Park, the new office tower by Hines, is looking to command $200 per square foot for the 42,285-square-foot penthouse triplex at the top of the 28-story tower, on Sixth Avenue between 39th and 40th streets. The space comes with an alfresco roof terrace of just under 850 square feet that has Bryant Park for its backyard. Outdoor space traditionally had not been a priority in office towers, because the developer and tenants ...

Coveted Downtown neighborhoods like Soho and the West Village have commanded some of the highest residential rents in Manhattan. But now landlords – most recently Stone Street Properties and SMA Equities – have found that converting ground-floor apartments into retail space is far more profitable. Stone Street filed plans to convert a first floor apartment at 101 MacDougal Street, between Bleecker Street and Minetta Lane, to a store, while SMA Equities did the same at 22 Spring Street, between ...

There are three Midtown religious institutions that want to cash in on the city’s Midtown East rezoning proposal: the St. Patrick’s Cathedral, St. Bartholomew’s and Central Synagogue. They want to sell air (aka: the right to build more Manhattan real estate). In fact they feel a bit left out because the Bloomberg administration’s rezoning plan would allow them to reap the material rewards of these rights, but they found themselves just outside of the rezoned area.
The proposal aims to ...