The Hottest New Condo Trend Is Reusing Old Buildings

Everything old is new again. Well, mostly new, anyway. Look across New York City and you’ll find all manner of structures – stables, churches, factories, warehouses – being converted to residential use.

And in a market where it sometimes seems the sole imperative is to cram as much apartment into as little space as possible, adaptive reuse can allow (or force) developers to add some idiosyncratic touches to their buildings.

Take, for instance, Six Cortlandt Alley ($6 million to $9 million), a five-unit condo conversion of a former corset factory and furniture showroom from Megalith Capital Management and Imperial Development Group. In the course of work on the project, the developers uncovered original details like granite archways, and stone walls and timber that they’ve incorporated into the new building.

Likewise with developments such as Alchemy Properties’ Woolworth Tower Residences, where Frank Woolworth’s original private lap pool is being repurposed as part of the 33-unit condo development’s ($4.6 million to $110 million) amenities package. At 51 Jay St. ($2.4 million to $5.2 million) in Dumbo, developers Slate Property Group and Adam America Real Estate preserved the century-old industrial building’s original facade while incorporating its roof skylight into the glassed-in penthouse.

At West Village building the Shephard ($1.4 million to $29.5 million), Naftali Group maintained original features like barrel-vault ceilings, and brick-and-granite detailing when it carved 38 condos out of the 19th-century industrial building.

Uptown, at 140-142 W. 81st St., CMC Development Group and Epstein Development Group are converting the 19th-century Mount Pleasant Baptist Church into a five-unit condo where apartments will feature grace notes from the building’s past like its stained-glass rose window and gabled roofs.

Adaptive reuse can be a mixed bag, though, because while such projects are catnip to architects, developers have cause to be more circumspect. There can also be additional expenses when it comes to renovating.

“Conversions are tough,” says Megalith CEO Samvir Sidhu, noting that old buildings often come with unexpected surprises.

“You never have enough time or enough diligence to be able to truly uncover some of the unforeseen things [that will arise in a conversion],” he says. (Source: The New York Post)