Two months after Lehman Brothers Holdings sold Dunbar Manor, a new owner is overhauling the sprawling West Harlem rental complex.
Dunbar Manor includes six walk-up apartment buildings containing 536 units that encompass an entire city block between Seventh and Eighth avenues and West 149th and West 150th streets. Developer E&M Associates (the development arm of E&M Management) has already kicked off renovations, which include turning Dunbar Manor’s 11 commercial units into a fitness center, interior courtyard and other amenity space, refurbishing gardens, and adding a playground, extra security and a doorman, said Fredrik Eklund, co-founder of Douglas Elliman’s Eklund-Gomes team.
Team members Andrew Melohn and Samuel Berry snagged the exclusive leasing assignment, they told The Real Deal.
Melohn and Berry have already started leasing the one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments with prices ranging from about $1,300 a month to $2,500 a month. The first 11 units at the building were listed today and 19 additional units will be listed next week, Berry said.
Dunbar Manor, built in 1926 by John D. Rockefeller Jr., was part of a portfolio of 15 buildings sold by Lehman Brothers in August, as previously reported. Six unnamed buyers, including E&M Associates, purchased the portfolio of Upper Manhattan apartment buildings, which included 1,084 residential units. Eklund and Berry declined to discuss the buyer.
Dunbar Manor was sold to a Brooklyn-based LLC called Dunbar Owner in a deal that closed on June 17 for $55 million, city property records show.
Berry and Melohn joined the Eklund-Gomes team from Keller Williams NYC in July to head up the team’s rental division, as The Real Deal previously reported.
“The reason we brought on Sam and Andrew was that rental is a natural step for us and we are in talks right now with several of the larger landlords in the city,” Eklund said, although he declined to specify which ones.