Five years ago, I told a reporter from The New York Times that Manhattan was essentially becoming one luxury neighborhood and we would start to see properties in “newer” residential areas meet the market in more established areas. With all of the residential development over the past ten years, this is now a reality, and, to the surprise of a few people, last month showed that the average price of a home was more expensive downtown than it was uptown.
Above: The Atalanta Building (one of the first TriBeCa conversions) was originally a refrigeration building with no windows.
Having sold downtown for almost 2 decades, I’ve pioneered sales and marketing in a number of these newer downtown areas. And it’s because of the pioneering developers that these neighborhoods have evolved into some of the most desirable residential neighborhoods in the City. Some of the more notable pioneers should be recognized for their vision, and for blazing a trail that benefited the adopters.
What these “downtown” developers created was a product to satisfy the demand of their generation of buyers. Conversions in loft buildings with great volumes of space that the uptown buildings couldn’t satisfy. Homes that had the amenities, services, and finishes that uptown buyers expected, but in architecturally different and historically significant buildings. New residential neighborhoods like West Chelsea, SoHo, TriBeCa, and the Bowery have now become expensive zip codes and it’s no surprise that we are currently selling a new development in Chelsea at higher prices than almost every new development in Manhattan.
–Shaun Osher is the CEO and Founder of CORE.