An affiliate of New Jersey investment firm Pantzer Properties acquired a 31,125-square-foot rental building in the Upper West Side for $35.8 million, according to property records filed with the city today.
The five-story property at 370 Columbus Avenue, near 77th Street and across from the American Museum of Natural History, hit the market for $36 million in August. Massey Knakal Realty Services brokers Robert Knakal, Thomas Donovan and Paul Smadbeck represented the seller, Midtown West-based development and management firm Vintage Group. No broker represented Pantzer in the deal.
Vintage, which declined to comment, acquired the building for $21 million in 2008 and subsequently renovated many of the units after tenants moved out.
The building holds 54 rental apartments, one-third of which are rent-stabilized and two-thirds of which are market-rate. Prices range from the upper $2,000s per month for a one-bedroom to upper $3,000s for a two-bedroom.
The property has 80 feet of Frontage On Columbus Avenue for the 3,000 square feet of retail, including Japanese restaurant Sushi of Gari and a small delicatessen.
Pantzer plans to renovate the lobby and the hallways and, according to Donovan, “make it more of a luxury building.”
“The lobby has been practically untouched since it was built in 1910,” Jason Pantzer, co-president of Pantzer, told The Real Deal, “and luckily it has really good bones.” He runs the firm with partners Edward and Jordan Pantzer.
The firm is targeting multi-family properties in various parts of Manhattan, and has no other deals there in the works at this time, Jason Pantzer said.
The purchase marks Pantzer’s first in the city, though it has had an office here since 2005 in Midtown East. Pantzer and its property management arm, Panco Management, tend to acquire properties in the Washington, D.C., area. The company also has offices in Rochelle Park, N.J., Herndon, Va., and Silver Spring, Md.
Vintage’s $19 million acquisition of 135-35 Northern Boulevard in Flushing, also known as the RKO Plaza, was the second-largest commercial deal in Queens in 2010, The Real Deal reported.