January 8, 2012 http://www.globest.com/news/12_514/newyork/multifamily/Prewar-West-Side-Rental-Fetches- 150M-328580.html

Prewar West Side Rental Fetches $150M By Paul Bubny |

The Beaux Arts apartment tower has been in the same family for three generations.

NEW YORK CITY-In the works since this past summer, the sale of the Chatsworth apartment tower on ’s closed just before year’s end, says Eastern Consolidated, which arranged the $150-million sale. The buyers were HFZ Capital Group and a partner, BSG Real Estate Ltd.

Prior to the 12-story, 139-unit prewar rental hitting the market last year, it had been owned by the same family for three generations. The Wall Street Journal reported that about half the apartments are rent-stabilized and the century-old Beaux Arts gem at 344 W. 72nd St. will need extensive renovations to command the kinds of rents seen in the neighborhood’s top-tier properties.

HFZ founder Ziel Feldman plans just such an overhaul, according to a release from Eastern Consolidated, although the WSJ quoted Feldman as saying that for now it will remain a rental. A 2010 renovation restored the 4,000-square-foot lobby to its original circa-1902 splendor. Eastern Consolidated senior director Lipa Lieberman, executive managing director David Schechtman, senior director Azita Aghravi and director financial services Gary Meese represented the seller, Chatsworth Realty Corp., which had owned the Chatsworth for about 70 years. “We are excited with the end-of-year sale of this historic, iconic residence, certainly classed in the same league as the Dakota, and the Belnord,” Lieberman says in the release.

The threat of a plunge over the fiscal cliff was among the factors pushing buyers and sellers to close on deals such as the Chatsworth before year-end, Barbara Byrne Denham, Eastern Consolidated’s chief economist, says in a fourth-quarter report. “The jump in sales was not a surprise given the expected increase in capital gains taxes that go into effect this year,” she wrote. “While the terms of the recent deal reached in Congress to evade the ‘fiscal cliff’ were still unknown through the last day of 2012, many investors were eager to close deals fearing that higher capital gains tax rates were imminent.”

On the legal side, Harold Levine, David H. Cohen, Michelle Greenberg and Thomas Huszar of Moritt Hock & Hamroff LLP represented the seller, while Andrew W. Albstein, Steve Uffner and Robert LoSchiavo of Weprin Finkel Goldstein LLP acted on behalf of the buyer