NRC members outline personal projects

Real Estate Weekly, August 2, 1995 by Lois Weiss

In a departure from regular programming for its Summer luncheon, National Realty Club (NRC) members took time to brag about their own projects. Five members discussed divergent endeavors, including an art festival and homeless housing on the Lower East Side; Chinese restaurant locations on the Upper West Side and Midtown; mortgage refinancing of a co-op and an architectural condominium conversion on the Upper East Side.

NRC Program Director Jerrold P. Fuchs, visited all of the sites and provided a slide show of the members' work. Coincidentally, he was also able to exhibit some of his own photographs of the Art Around The Park festival. This is a local program that was in part sponsored by the Businesses in the East Village Association (BEVA), on whose board sits Robert Perl, president of Tower Brokerage. "This is an exciting vibrant neighborhood," he told NRC members.

Because of the problems in the area in the 1980s, that included homelessness, peddling, crime and sanitation, the area merchants banded together to found BEVA and upgrade the neighborhoods around Tompkins Square Park.

Contrary to popular misconceptions, Perl said he is achieving rentals of $38 a foot, just two doors down from a building the city is wresting from anarchist squatters. Most rentals range from the mid-$20s to the mid-$30s, with large apartments renting for $2,500.

There has also been a big surge in retail values, he said, with rents achieving $25 on the side streets and $75 on prime areas of Second Avenue, the neighborhood's retail corridor. Perl said he is completing a lease on Avenue A near Houston Street for $50 a foot for a bar/restaurant that is replacing a "drug bodega."

Mortgage broker Melvin B. Bisgyer is also active on the Lower East Side, but with a group called Community Access that helps provide housing and support services for homeless individuals. The group's latest project is the conversion of the former Gouverneur Hospital to a residence program called Gouverneur Court, which serves AIDs patients as well as the formerly homeless.

Each apartment has its own small kitchen and bathroom, while support services are provided in community facilities. The building's noteworthy dual-section curved front, which is visible from the FDR Drive, was created at the time the building was constructed in 1899, when the conventional "wisdom" had it that tuberculosis germs lived in corners.

Bisgyer explained the newly-converted building is virtually empty during the day, because once these individuals have a clean place to sleep and shower and clean clothes, they go out and find jobs.

"Most of the members of Community Access are working members of the community," he said. The Section 8 program provides the difference in costs between the resident's income and the rents. State and city funds as well as Federal tax credits were combined to create the project.

Community Access has about 190 apartments spread throughout the East Village, where the local community has embraced programs that help get the homeless off the streets.

Another conversion project was orchestrated by National Realty Club member Lester P. Glass, AIA, who helped turn the dilapidated rental at 944 Park Avenue into a glamorous condo conversion with about a $3.5 million investment into infrastructure. "The building was in a serious state of disrepair," he noted.

One of the most interesting aspects of that job was the addition to the penthouse of an entirely new level, which also involved the rehabbing and combining of the spaces. The building received new roofing and waterproofing, new windows and a new wood and mirror lobby.

Glass re-designed vacant apartments and combined small units into larger floor-throughs. Additionally, a doctor's quite was created on the second floor that required the separate installation of a handicapped elevator within the existing envelope.

A few blocks away, at 332 East 84th Street, Anne Teshima had been involved with a co-op conversion since its inception and acted as their sales agent.

When it came time to re-negotiate the mortgage, Teshima was able to place the $1.65 million loan with City & Suburban. There were less than 50 percent of the 148 units sold, however, so C&S wanted the sponsor to pledge his unsold shares. They eventually backed off from that requirement, permitting the five-year placement with a five-year renewal to go through. Teshima praised C&S's Ken Bowen and Joe Laquidera - another NRC member - for assisting with the transaction.

As a broker who admits to enjoying food, Maylin Lin, a director/broker of Brown Harris Stevens has helped her favorite restaurants expand and find new locations. Her first deal, she recalled, "went from a sale to a net lease - and then the owner changed his mind again. But we're very persistent.. She eventually made the sale.

She began negotiating with the owner for space on 72nd Street and Columbus for a Chinese restaurant client. Eventually, she helped the client buy the brownstone at auction from the RTC for less money than they were willing to pay, after both the owner and the lender defaulted. That deal was complicated by the buy-out of a second floor tenant.