800 Fifth Ave<\/a>.\u00a0\u2014 the Bernard Spitzer-built tower that has anchored the corner of Fifth and 61st Street since 1978 \u2014 he set in motion one of the more unusual displacement events in recent New York real estate history.\u00a0<\/p>\nIn order to redevelop the building, he\u2019s evicting tenants from\u00a0all 208 units who already pay some of the highest\u00a0rents in the country \u2014 and they\u2019re not happy \u00a0<\/p>\n
Good cause eviction protections are unlikely to apply at rent levels this high. <\/p>\n
All apartments must be vacated by year\u2019s end; the leasing office went dark last August. And Naftali\u2019s firm, working with architect Robert A.M. Stern, is moving toward a partial demolition of the existing 33-story tower to make way for a 26-story, 330-foot limestone condominium that promises to be among the most expensive addresses ever built in Manhattan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stern\u2019s signature prewar-inflected design, with arched windows, dentil-trim cornices and terraced upper setbacks, will rise directly across from Central Park.<\/p>\n
For those being shown the door, the vision is considerably less inspiring.<\/p>\n
Developer Miki Naftali\u2019s (above) $800 million acquisition of 800 Fifth Ave. is forcing 208 of Manhattan\u2019s wealthiest renters out of their homes ahead of a planned ultra-luxury condo redevelopment designed by architect Robert A.M. Stern. Astrid Stawiarz<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve lived here for over 10 years. I love the neighborhood. If it were up to me, I would never leave,\u201d one tenant, who asked not to be identified, told The Post. \u201cI\u2019ve been trying to find something similar, but have to look a little further east, which has been a pain. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere is nothing, and I mean nothing, for rent around here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tenants at 800 Fifth were not paying cheap rent, either. One-bedrooms ran around $9,000 a month; larger units climbed to $30,000. These are people with means \u2014 many of whom have lived in the building for a decade or more and chose renting precisely because it suited their lifestyle. Now they are learning, in real time, that Fifth Avenue simply does not have a rental market to speak of.<\/p>\n
The building, originally developed by Bernard Spitzer in 1978, had long been considered the pinnacle of Upper East Side rental living, with apartments ranging from roughly $9,000 to $30,000 a month. Google Maps<\/p>\n
Keyan Sanai, a top rental broker at Douglas Elliman who has fielded a surge of calls from displaced residents, has watched the scramble up close. The problem, he says, is not purely financial.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not how much more they could pay. It\u2019s a matter of, does it exist? If you go up on Fifth Avenue, in what we\u2019ll call the prime area, there\u2019s only one other rental building, 945 Fifth Ave., that the Rudins operate,\u201d Sanai told The Post. \u201cSo now, regardless of whether they\u2019re willing to up their budget $5,000 to $10,000 to $15,000, they have to look elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rudin family\u2019s 945 Fifth, long regarded as the gold standard among Fifth Avenue rental buildings, has been overwhelmed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI get phone calls, and they go, \u2018Hey, can you help me? I need to move.\u2019 I go, \u2018Let me guess, 800 Fifth?\u2019 They\u2019re like, \u2018Yeah.\u2019 I said, \u2018Did you call 945 Fifth Ave.?\u2019 They go, \u2018Yeah, there\u2019s like a five-year waiting list now.\u2019 Because people scrambled. So now those people are broadening their search.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
All tenants must vacate by year\u2019s end, and the leasing office has been closed since last August. StreetEasy<\/p>\n
A bedroom at 800 Fifth Ave. StreetEasy<\/p>\n
What\u2019s upsetting the Fifth Avenue devotees even more is that even the empty apartments\u00a0on the prime address \u2014 owned or leased by second-homers who rarely use them \u2014 are out of reach \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s\u00a0a lot of the co-ops on Fifth that don\u2019t even allow you to sublet,\u201d Sanai said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe actually see this on the other side of the park as well. Central Park West. There are three buildings that are rental buildings. So even if you wanted to spend $125 grand a month, you can\u2019t live in The San Remo, for example. It\u2019s a beautiful building with the two towers. You can\u2019t live in it. There\u2019s no supply. You cannot rent your apartment out.\u201d<\/p>\n
For those who do find available apartments, the pricing has been eye-opening. One unit at Fasano Fifth Avenue, a private members club offering short-term turnkey rentals, went for $175,000 a month. Last December, an apartment at The Benson at 1045 Madison Ave. was leased for $95,000 a month.<\/p>\n
The displacement is sending well-heeled residents into one of the most inventory-starved rental submarkets in the city, where comparable Fifth Avenue options are virtually nonexistent. Robert A. M. Stern Architects<\/p>\n
The only other prime rental building on that stretch of Fifth Avenue, 945 Fifth, operated by the Rudin family, now has a five-year waiting list. Google Maps<\/p>\n
The sale itself has quietly raised eyebrows across the industry. <\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone is pretty shocked. Who in their right mind would sell a piece of real estate on Fifth Avenue that has that kind of income coming?\u201d Sanai said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was such a rare building to begin with, to have a rental building in that location. And they could practically ask almost whatever they wanted, especially recently with the rental market.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs new owners of 800 Fifth Avenue, we have been in consistent communication with outgoing residents throughout this transition,\u201d a spokesperson for Naftali\u2019s team told The Real Deal.<\/a> \u201cWe are making progress toward our investment in the building and look forward to sharing more about our vision for this property.\u201d<\/p>\nAn interior of the living room at 351 E. 51st St., where Keyan Sanai said he received two of the three offers from tenants who live at 800 Fifth Ave. StreetEasy<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, on East 51st Street, a unit at 351 drew multiple offers, two of them from 800 Fifth residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey said if we can\u2019t live on Fifth Avenue, we at least want a really good apartment, and at least we could just pull out to the FDR quicker and get to our home in Rhinebeck,\u201d Sanai said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople want to be near Fifth, but they understand it\u2019s not feasible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get out your Stravinsky violins.\u00a0 Some of Manhattan\u2019s wealthiest renters are about to be evicted, as the owner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[2184,68,575,5151,1023,75,84,83,360,2346,3003,9,24,63,1491,564,4753,3006,466,62],"class_list":["post-225127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-development","tag-exclusive","tag-fifth-avenue","tag-luxury-development","tag-luxury-real-estate","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-midtown","tag-midtown-east","tag-midtown-west","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-real-estate","tag-rent","tag-rentals","tag-residential-real-estate","tag-upper-east-side","tag-upper-west-side"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225127","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=225127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}