A newly acquired office property in Lower Manhattan will be redeveloped into a 300\u2011unit mixed\u2011use apartment building, joining a wave of office\u2011to\u2011residential conversion projects that has pushed the area\u2019s population above 70,000 for the first time.<\/p>\n
CSC Real Estate, the investment firm that acquired 75 Maiden Lane in October, plans to convert the property into a 300\u2011unit apartment building, Salo Smeke, managing partner and head of acquisitions at CSC, said in an interview. CSC purchased the 172,040\u2011square\u2011foot office building, along with an adjacent 2,241\u2011square\u2011foot parking lot at 13 Gold St., for a combined $45.19 million, according to CoStar data.<\/p>\n
The plan comes as Lower Manhattan\u2019s transformation<\/a> from a traditional 9\u2011to\u20115 business district into a 24\/7 residential neighborhood shows little sign of slowing. The neighborhood\u2019s estimated residential population surpassed 70,000 residents in 2025, including an increase of 3,900 residents last year alone, as 14 office\u2011to\u2011residential conversion projects have been announced over the past two years, according to<\/a> the Alliance for Downtown New York. Those projects have also helped push Lower Manhattan\u2019s office vacancy rate lower for a seventh consecutive quarter, the alliance\u2019s data show.<\/p>\n Unlike many residential conversion projects that market upscale amenities such as indoor swimming pools, outdoor terraces or luxury fitness centers, Smeke said 75 Maiden will compete primarily on price.<\/p>\n Amenities at the property will be \u201cvery basic,\u201d he told CoStar News. \u201cYou can rent across the street for $100 a foot, or you can rent [from us] for $70 a foot,\u201d Smeke said. \u201cYou can have the padel court and everything like that and pay $2,000 more a month. Or you can do it with me and pay $2,000 less, and rent a gym membership. \u2026 Downtown has every amenity. \u2026 We cannot compete with amenities. \u2026 It\u2019s a fool\u2019s errand to compete on amenities, because everybody\u2019s going to do the newest and the better.\u201d<\/p>\n The project will tap New York state\u2019s 467\u2011m tax exemption program, which is designed to encourage office\u2011to\u2011residential conversions, Smeke said.<\/p>\n CSC is taking a similar approach at another conversion project in midtown Manhattan, where it is redeveloping an office building at 300 E. 42nd St. after acquiring the property last year. <\/p>\n Amenities there also will remain \u201cbasic,\u201d Smeke said. The building, at 42nd Street and Second Avenue, sits directly across from the massive conversion of the former Pfizer headquarters at 219 and 235 E. 42nd St. That project is expected to deliver more than 1,600 apartments and over 100,000 square feet of amenities, according to one of the lenders.<\/a><\/p>\n CSC purchased the roughly 240,000\u2011square\u2011foot midtown property in April for $52 million, according to CoStar data. The building currently houses office tenants including the Consulate General of Jamaica, CoStar data shows. CSC plans to convert the non-office portion into 135 apartment units.<\/p>\n Office tenants will remain in place under CSC\u2019s plan, Smeke said. The firm consolidated tenants into the first four floors, which it then sold as a stand-alone office property, while the remaining space is being converted to residential use. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in the sushi business,\u201d Smeke said at a commercial sales brokers breakfast Wednesday hosted by the Real Estate Board of New York, using a building\u2011as\u2011fish analogy. \u201cYou can chop it up in the best possible way … and maximize the value of each piece.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A newly acquired office property in Lower Manhattan will be redeveloped into a 300\u2011unit mixed\u2011use apartment building, joining…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-140631","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-manhattan","9":"tag-manhattan-headlines","10":"tag-manhattan-news","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}