press: the art of the deal
Publication: The New York Observer | Manhattan Transfers | 11/10/2003
NOLITA
354 Broome Street
Two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo.
Asking: $935,000. Selling. $900,000.
Time on the market: two months.
It’s the age-old Manhattan real-estate cycle: Artists populate neighborhoods in transition, making them hip and fashionable until the moneyed set moves in to experience the bohemian cachet of a newly gentrified address. So when the buyer of this apartment, a technology executive at Morgan Stanley, saw this 1,700-square-foot Nolita duplex owned by a Peruvian artist, he was enthralled with the space and its "downtown funky feel," according to his broker, Peter Comitini of the Corcoran Group. The two-floor loft occupies space in an early 20th-century building that formally was an ice house for cold-food storage and features 15-foot ceilings, exposed beams and a large open kitchen. After seeing units in such fashionable downtown addresses as the Chelsea Mercantile building, the buyer, a man in his 30’s, was attracted to the unique feel of Nolita’s narrow streets. "The low-key authenticity appealed to him," Mr. Comitini said. "He was thinking about the upside investment potential of the space." John Krug, of Krug and Company, was the listing broker on the property
