NEW YORK CITY — Zeta Charter Schools will open a 124,000-square-foot academic institution at 400 W. 219th St. in Upper Manhattan. The school, which will be called Zeta Inwood, will serve students from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade and is slated to open ahead of the 2023-2024 academic year. The campus will have multiple outdoor play areas, including a 10,000-square-foot rooftop playground as well as a separate early childhood playground and an indoor basketball court. Bolivar Development is constructing the eight-story building that will house the new school. Lindsay Ornstein, Stephen Powers and Thomas Hines of Transwestern provided tenant advisory services for Zeta Charter Schools.
New York
By Mark Fogel, founder, ACRES Capital Despite the pandemic-related uncertainty that dominated the markets in 2020, the student housing sector consistently displayed strong pre-lease occupancy rates among properties under construction, suggesting that the asset class would be well-positioned to hit the ground running in 2021. According to RealPage Analytics, students, encouraged by the prospect of fully reopened campuses, fueled a nearly 10 percent nationwide increase in pre-lease occupancy at off-campus housing between March and April of this year. This data in particular seems to support improvement for the student housing sector overall. Research organization RealPage has tracked student housing occupancy rates at 175 major universities across the country, a sort of barometer for the larger industry. As of March, the company’s data showed that 59.6 percent of beds at those universities were preleased for the fall 2021 semester. While that figure is still 200 basis points below the March 2020 level, it seemingly speaks to students’ preference to get back to living on campus. And while this is good news for operators and developers, the resiliency of the student housing market is bringing forth an unintended, but positive effect on one of the hardest-hit rental markets in the country: New …
ITHACA, N.Y. — Chicago-based investment firm Harrison Street has acquired The Lux and The Lofts, two student housing communities serving students at Cornell University in Ithaca. The properties respectively offer 207 and 74 beds in various floor plans. Both assets were 95 percent occupied at the time of sale. Ryan Lang and Ben Harkrider of Newmark represented Harrison Street and the seller, a partnership between Ithaca-based Visum Development Group and equity partner East To West Capital, in the transaction.
NEW YORK CITY — DiamondRock Hospitality Co. (NYSE: DRH), a Maryland-based REIT, has sold the 725-room Lexington Hotel in Midtown Manhattan for $185.3 million, or roughly $256,000 per room. The sales price represents a cap rate of 5.4 percent based on the hotel’s 2019 net operating income. The Lexington Hotel features multiple meeting and event spaces. DiamondRock intends to invest the net proceeds from the sale in resort and urban lifestyle hotels. The buyer was locally based hospitality owner-operator MCR.
HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. — General contractor DJ Royce Construction Corp. will renovate Renaissance Hills, a 656-unit affordable housing community located in the Long Island village of Hauppauge. Hicksville, N.Y.-based Mark Design Studios designed the redevelopment, which included upgrades to unit interiors and amenity spaces. The property’s amenity package now consists of two pools, a sports court, dog park, outdoor grilling areas, a playground and a fitness and wellness center. Construction is set to begin this fall.
NEW YORK CITY — Columbia Property Trust is underway on the renovation of 149 Madison Avenue, a 114,000-square-foot office building in Midtown Manhattan’s Nomad neighborhood. The 12-story building was originally constructed in 1916. The redevelopment includes enhanced retail storefronts, windows and lobby, as well as the addition of new amenities such as a multi-purpose lounge and a fitness and wellness center. Gensler is the architect of the project, which is slated for completion by the end of the year.
NEW YORK CITY — Houlihan-Parnes Realtors LLC has received a $3.3 million loan for the refinancing of a 10,000-square-foot retail property in the Inwood area of Manhattan. A local bank provided the loan, which was structured with a fixed interest rate of 3.5 percent for the first 24 months of the five-year term and the option to extend the loan for an additional five years. Houlihan-Parnes owns the property in partnership with ISJ Management.
BRONXVILLE, N.Y. — CBRE has negotiated the sale of Avalon Bronxville, a 110-unit apartment complex located north of New York City in Westchester County. Built in 1999 and renovated in 2012, the property offers amenities such as a fitness center, resident lounge, concierge services, package lockers and outdoor picnic areas. A CBRE team of Jeffrey Dunne, Gene Pride, Jeremy Neuer, Steve Bardsley, Travis Langer and Stuart MacKenzie represented the seller, AvalonBay Communities, in the transaction. The team also procured the buyer, a fund managed by Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
LIVERPOOL, N.Y. — Healthcare brokerage firm Jacobson Properties and Pyramid Brokerage Co. of Binghamton have arranged the sale of West Taft Road Medical Center, a 42,374-square-foot medical office building in Liverpool, a suburb of Syracuse. An entity doing business as West Taft Road Associates LLC sold the asset to an international private equity firm specializing in healthcare real estate for an undisclosed price. Lisa Menin of Jacobson Properties and Leo Jones of Pyramid Brokerage Co. represented the seller in the transaction.
NEW YORK CITY — The Lego Group has unveiled its new “retailtainment” concept with the opening of a 7,175-square-foot flagship store within Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan. The Danish toymaker spent two years developing the new retail concept and found that consumers wanted opportunities to play with bricks, participate in brick-inspired activities and personalize their experiences. To that end, the two-level store features a new array of merchandise and experienced-based attractions, including a virtual reality experience, storytelling table and a personalization studio.