Ailing NYCHA Could See Rent For Its HQ Skyrocket Under New Owners
The New York City Housing Authority’s HQ in LIC is being sold, and the new owners are likely to raise rents dramatically when NYCHA’s lease is up in 2020.
NYCHA occupies 440k SF at 23-02 49th Ave, where it pays just $9/SF—well below the going rate in newly hip LIC.
Westbrook Partners and Andrew Chung are under contract to buy the building from Ruby Schron and the Fruchthandler family for $195M, Crain’s reports.
The new landlords are likely to jack up rents by over 400% and will most likely remeasure the building’s space according to Manhattan standards, which take into account lobbies, corridors and other common spaces not currently reflected in NYCHA’s lease.
So not only will NYCHA—currently struggling to fill a $60M deficit—be paying more, it will also be paying for more square footage.
The building is the same one NYCHA used last year to store millions of dollars worth of computers and office supplies it wastefully purchased, before it ended up selling them for cents on the dollar. [Crain’s]
