Ian Bruce Eichner, a developer known for hitting lofty heights before plunging into financial troughs, is now seeing the conclusion of a rocky ride at his West Village apartment.
After seven years—a stretch of time that saw the condo market soften, then enjoy a Covid bump and then finally come back down to earth again—Eichner has sold his West Village penthouse for $9.2 million, a discount of more than 30% from the $25 million he was seeking in 2017.
The asking price back then for his top-floor unit, No. PHAE at 100 Morton St., could be considered aggressive. Eichner had paid about $8 million for the 5,700-square-foot spread in 2010, when he bought it from actors and twin sisters Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. And the tripling of its price came as the once-hot mid-2010s condo market was deep into its cooling period.
The Olsens had bought the unit from the building’s sponsor, JD Carlise, for about $7 million in 2004, when the 14-story, 140-unit development, a full-block project called 1 Morton Square, opened.
Featuring a living room with a fireplace, an open kitchen with a 1,000-bottle wine storage enclosure and partial views of the Hudson River, the apartment is currently configured as a two-bedroom. One of the bedrooms, part of a primary suite, includes both a dressing room and a walk-in closet.
But in a move suggesting that buyers expect more places to sleep in an apartment of its size, the Corcoran Group, the agency that handled the listing, provided an alternate floor plan in the listing showing how the penthouse could in fact be converted into a six-bedroom.
The deal went into contract Sept. 29 and closed March 1, according to a deed that appeared in the city register Thursday. The buyer was a shell company, Lion and Bull LLC, represented by Manhattan law firm Schwartz, Levine, Pinkas, Stark.
Corcoran’s Laurie Lewis declined to comment. And a message left for Eichner at his firm, Continuum Co., was not returned.
Eichner rose to prominence in the 1980s with the development of Midtown’s CitySpire tower, a 73-story high-rise on West 56th Street that offered a mix of offices and condos but succumbed to foreclosure soon after opening in 1989. Eichner filed for bankruptcy protection two years later.
Another famous misfire occurred in Harlem, where Continuum purchased a site near the 125th Street Metro-North station from Vornado Realty Trust in 2013 and intended to put up a hefty two-towered rental complex. But Eichner ran into debt problems, and after the Durst Organization snapped up a distressed note on the property, at 1800 Park Ave., Eichner agreed to sell it to Durst in 2016 for $91 million.
Eichner’s staying power, however, has been notable. A 65-story, 83-unit condo at 45 E. 22nd St. in the Flatiron District begun about a decade ago weathered years of court battles among its partners, was forced to bring in new investors along the way when funds ran short and also struggled through a declining sales market.
But the tower’s last sponsor unit, No. 52AB, went on sale in January 2023. Initially listed for $20 million, it sold for $17.5 million in July, records show.
In 2022 Continuum entered into a contract to buy a Unitarian church and some related brownstones on East 35th Street for a reported $70 million with the idea of putting up a 15-unit condo tower at the Murray Hill address. Continuum does not appear to have ever closed on the site; there is no deed indicating an outright sale in the city register. But the developer may have instead partnered with the church in the deal.
In any event, the church, the nonprofit Community Church of NY, filed an application to demolish the site this month.
C. J. Hughes , 2024-03-15 18:34:08
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