By Patrick Hedlund
On the demo block
Eight months after a five-story Tribeca building partially collapsed, the owner of the 154-year-old loft building has filed for a permit to demolish the remaining portion of the structure.
Property owner Aharon Vaknin filed for a full demolition permit with the Department of Buildings on Dec. 24. He plans to build an eight-story hotel or dormitory building on the 69-71 Reade St. site between Broadway and Church Sts.
Some of the vacant structure collapsed with 71 Reade in the early-morning hours of April 30, causing no injuries but crushing cars parked on the street. The building, which lies in the Tribeca South Historic District, received a D.O.B. violation in 2008 for having a 1-inch-wide crack that ran 10 feet up the side.
Erratic rents
In the increasingly unpredictable residential real estate market, the average rental price of doorman and non-doorman units in Soho and Tribeca — the city’s most-expensive neighborhoods for renters — saw both major gains and losses over the last month.
According to the Real Estate Group New York’s monthly market report, sharp increases and declines were recorded in Soho, with the submarket posting a 2.6 overall drop for the average price of all unit types.
Doorman apartments in the tony neighborhood plummeted the most, with the average price of studios decreasing by 10.6 percent (to $2,435 per month), one-bedrooms by 10 percent (to $4,394) and two-bedrooms by 8 percent (to $7,206). However, Soho’s non-doorman units fared relatively well, with the average price of studios increasing by 10.1 percent (to $2,298 per month) and one-bedrooms growing by 8.8 percent (to $3,840). Non-doorman two-bedrooms in the neighborhood dropped by 5.9 percent (to $4,646).
In Tribeca, all the unit types combined posted an average increase of 3.2 percent, with non-doorman two-bedrooms climbing by 9.2 percent (to $7,568 per month) and doorman two-bedrooms by 5.6 percent (to $6,029).
After struggling in recent months, rents on the Lower East Side grew by 3.9 percent overall — with every unit type up except doorman studios.
Other notable increases included Village doorman two-bedrooms (up 6.9 percent), Financial District non-doorman two-bedrooms (up 9 percent) and Battery Park City doorman studios (up 13.6 percent).
Drops occurred at Village non-doorman studios (down 3.3 percent), East Village doorman studios and two-bedrooms (down about 7.2 percent combined), and Financial District doorman studio, one- and two-bedrooms (down about 8.7 percent combined).