CILF of the Week - 333 Rector Place (One Rector Park)

Although we haven't even reached Open House Sunday yet, we're pretty sure that this week's CILF (Condo we'd like to...woo woo) is the magnificent 333 Rector Place . We saw mostly 1BR, 1BA units priced between $630,000 - $810,000 (most were around $730,000 or so) - all in the 760 sq ft - 870 sq ft range. There are two "finishes" available for these units - the "Park" and the "River". The Park finish has darker floors, a kind of retrolicious white marble in the bathroom and a lighter wood on the cabinets/doors. The River is almost an exact mirror image, with lighter floors, dark marble in the bathroom, and a darker wood on the cabinets/doors.

All of the units that we saw had balconies and the southern facing units have direct water views. The fixtures look great and we loved the large, open layouts of the apartments. The amenities seemed fine although only the bar/library was finished enough to show.

The units here get significantly more expensive on the higher floors (there are 14 floors in the building) with only apartments higher than the 8th floor having any water views. Similar to 20 Pine and The Riverhouse, we now lust after One Rector Park (which we think of as The Riverhouse of the South) but we are of course concerned with the building's financials. Particularly given that Rector Square, which is located literally across the street, has filed for bankruptcy in a public shitstorm that might not go away for awhile.

One Rector Park tells us that the sales office has been open for about three weeks and that the building is 10% sold. They have "relationships" with some major lenders but those lenders require the building to be 50% in contract prior to allowing anyone to close (all cash buyers, whoever you are, you can close any damn time you want). Sooooo....that means that of the 174 or so units in this building, 17 are sold leaving an additional 70 units or so that have to go into contract before anyone can live there. Hmmmm....no transactions right now means fat chance you're moving into here anytime soon.

Oh and ummm...if you're a little light on your brunch budget these days, pop by their weekend open houses from 1-4PM. They have mimosas (yep), croissants, scones and you can even pocket some granola bars to go. PLUS they give you a cute tote. We love you 333 Rector.

1 River Terrace #8B - $920,000 - 865 sq ft

Ah, Riverhouse. Similar to our obsession with 20 Pine, we cannot stop thinking about this development and covet the apartments there like a lost lover.

This building has (we think) the best location in Battery Park in an area (which we call BPC North) roughly parallel to TriBeCa. BPC North (which is the small strip north of the World Financial Center, west of the West Side Highway and south of Chambers) is located next to the best park (we think) in Lower Manhattan and has only one condo building: The Riverhouse. That is until (or if), Millstein ever gets Liberty Luxe built AND ends up selling those units instead of converting them to rentals, as rumor has it.

But we digress. Riverhouse is truly a spectacular development although anything even remotely (and it's remote in this economy) affordable here has an interior (often very ugly) view. The unit that we saw was a little "clone home" if you catch our drift, but the windows were big and the floors were beautiful as per the new construction usual. The view in this unit was indeed quite nasty, facing another piece of Riverhouse plus a garbage area.

Is Riverhouse subject to the woes of other downtown new construction? We're not sure...they tell us that they are about 75% sold and 50% occupied, which are much better numbers than the bankrupt 225 Rector Place, the "other" new construction in BPC. We haven't seen any recent price drops on #8B, although we got the feeling from the agent that they would drop about $100k on this unit if faced with an offer.

20 Pine Street, #1006 - $799,000 - 1,070 sq ft.

Ah, 20 Pine, how we lust after
you. This building has such a cool vibe. The beautiful dark wood floors, "W Hotel" like fixtures and ambience, plus the New York Stock Exchange views in the unit that we saw almost made us forget about the terrible financial problems that have been plagueing this building for the last 6 months.

But...although we would like to imagine ourselves 20 pounds thinner and 6 inches taller as we strut around these magical units, we can't help but be reminded that there are 55 units for sale on Streeteasy.com and that the building recently tried to sell these units plus more at rack rate to a VC (or whoever else can pony up).

Would we like to buy here one day? You bet your Armani slippers we would. Would we buy here today? I guess su Casa is not mi Casa.

45 John Street

We visited 45 John Street a couple of weeks ago. They still have the "model" 7th floor, where you can walk around and see apartments with a variety of floorplans that will (one day) become available on higher floors.

Overall, we thought this building was daaaark. Dark. Dark. There was only one layout (the tiny 589sq ft corner "A" line) that we saw that had any natural light at all. Believe it or not, this was our favorite unit on the 7th floor (because of the light). Unfortunately, the kitchen was in the tiny living room (pasta sauce spatter on the couch anyone?) and the bedroom was a prison cell at 10'x8'. The other apartments definitely had larger bedrooms at the expense of the living room (not our ideal) and were basically pitch black at 1PM on a sunny day.

Combine that with <50% sold and we're thinking no way. If you want to take a financial risk in this area, 20 Pine has much nicer layouts and District is beautiful.

District, The Movie

I have to admit that when we finally saw District yesterday (that sexy building on the remarkably unsexy Fulton Street), we were mildly turned on. We saw two beautiful apartments, with cool kitchens, very high ceilings and big windows. Not even the inevitable views of the building across the street changed our minds about the pretty apartments.

The amenities are pretty much complete (the pool is filled, the upstairs roof deck looks better than the pictures, the media room is done, and the spa and gym are very, very cool). Despite this building's well-documented financial problems, we were quite tempted.

All of this despite the Developer's vaguely mysoginistic, porn-tastic ad campaign which culminates in perhaps the worst movie that I have ever seen created by a professional. I wonder how much they paid per square minute for this shaky beauty shot by a handheld (huh?) camera. Is that the Odeon in the background?