HOTD: Greenpoint Home For The Aged Hits Market
Holy smokes! The historic Greenpoint Home for the Aged (which the AIA Guide calls an “eclectic brick manion with Italianate massing and Romanesque Revival arches”) has just become available. The 5,000-square-foot mansion is not for the faint of heart, though. In addition to the 13 SRO tenants currently residing there, making use of the almost…
Holy smokes! The historic Greenpoint Home for the Aged (which the AIA Guide calls an “eclectic brick manion with Italianate massing and Romanesque Revival arches”) has just become available. The 5,000-square-foot mansion is not for the faint of heart, though. In addition to the 13 SRO tenants currently residing there, making use of the almost 15,000 square feet of air rights won’t be a simple matter given the 1887 building’s landmark status. The asking price is $2,500,000. This place is very hard to value, however, for the reasons cited above. Getting free and clear of the SRO tenants would take at least three years, we’d think; we’re not even sure a developer could get them out — and it’s going to be hard to find an individual with the deep pockets who plans to use this as a private residence and leave the unbuilt FAR unused. One possibility? A developer might just build around the existing tenants, essentially buying the property as a development venture. We don’t know the layout of the lot very well but it’s not apparent to us how the LPC will ever let anyone build 15,000 square feet here. What this calls for is a patient, eccentric multi-millionaire!
137 Oak Street [Massey Knakal] GMAP P*Shark
Droolworthy: Greenpoint Home for the Aged [Brownstoner]
AIA on Greenpoint [Ragette.org]
Your greed is vile. You can volley ideas and salivate over the desirability of a piece of property with total disregard for human life and go ahead, figure out a way to buy it up. Either way the entire landscape is rapidly being destroyed by your selfish idea of what constitutes progress and profit and soon the city will only be inhabited by cretins like yourselves. NY is an old dream turned nightmare.
SRO tenants have plenty of rights and often they are offered money to move, so that the process of converting and renovating the property can begin. The tricky part for any developer is that he must obtain a “certificate of non-harrassment” from tenants who move out in order for work to start. Anybody buying this place needs to really know what they are doing; there is quite a bit of work with the city including the submission of architect plans to convert the C of O. I considered buying a house (no tenants in it) which was an SRO and it was just too complicated for me (and expensive – getting financing is harder too). This is a magnificent old place but it could be someone’s life work.
I don’t get it, is this a nursing home or an SRO rental building that was once a nursing home? If it’s the former, then wouldn’t the folks living there be relocated by either family or the state (depending on how they got to be there in the first place)? If it’s the latter, just what are the legal rights of SRO tenants if their building is sold and the buyer wants them to leave? Does anyone have any real information or ideas, or just one-liners?
my humble opinion ..
who ever buy’s the property should burn the current tenant’s out . Out with the old
If someone is selling this building, which currently has tenants, isn’t it legitimate to view them as a concern for whoever is interested in buying the property? The tenants deserve respect and legal rights, but can a building inhabited by tenants only be sold to another landlord who intends to continue on with the property unchanged? Is there a middle ground between cold-heartedness and self-righteousness?
I feel for the people whose home it is.
There are many other buildings that are on the market to consider.
Noa
“Getting free and clear of the SRO tenants …’ – disgusting.
Help The AGED
one time they were just like you
drinking , smoking cigs and sniffin glue
Help the aged
don’t just put them in a home
can’t have much fun when they’re all on their own
give a hand if you can
try and help them to unwind
give them hop and give them comfort
cos they’re running out of time….
Wow, I wonder what it looks like inside. If it’s 5000 sqft and has 13 tenants, that’s only… 384 sqft each, and probably even less, since they would need room for stairwells, common areas, etc. I wonder if it’s all kinds of chopped up in there. Then again, if it was originally built as a home for the aged, maybe it just has separate bedrooms off a main hallway and they didn’t have to do any chopping up of the original layout/details to make it an SRO.
For the record, I agree that the current tenants need to be treated with respect, but I also kind of wish, after having visited/worked with numerous SRO buildings around Brooklyn, that the whole SRO system would be scrapped. It only leads to decrepit buildings and substandard living conditions, in my experience. I don’t really know of a good alternative, but the current system really does suck.