Leo Tsimmer’s Caerus Group is in late-stage talks with an unidentified university to build a 105,000-square-foot Washington Heights building with 150 rooms of student housing, The Real Deal has learned.
Caerus Bought The Wadsworth Avenue Baptist Church at 206-212 Wadsworth Avenue, near West 184th Street, this week after acquiring air rights in February, according sources familiar with the deal.
As part of the acquisition, Tsimmer agreed to allow for a church community space on the ground floor of a new, eight-story building. The three-story church on the site was built in 1926.
He was considering building residential units – either condominiums or rentals – on the site before the school approached him, sources said.
If the school housing deal does not occur, Tsimmer would instead build a 80-unit residential property with a garage and the aforementioned community facility, sources said.
Tsimmer’s $8 million purchase of the property comes out to $82 per buildable square foot. Cushman & Wakefield’s Robert Shapiro was the sole broker on the deal.
Tsimmer and Shapiro declined to comment.
Last month, Caerus and Quality Capital jointly acquired two East Village mixed-use buildings along Broadway for $60 million.