TWO years ago, the opening of the Corner and the Aire proved there was a healthy appetite for spare-few-expenses rentals on the Upper West Side.
Units in these buildings, which have finishes like mahogany floors and amenities like washers and dryers, leased quickly, even though rents were higher than the neighborhood average.
Now a new project is trying to replicate their successes. Developed by Friedland Properties and Rose Associates, a 20-story rental building is going up at Broadway and 77th Street. The building is now known as the Larstrand, though developers say that is just a working title.
What is settled is that the high-rise will have 181 units, from 480-square-foot studios to 1,700-square-foot three-bedrooms, said Robert A. Scaglion, a senior managing director of Rose Associates.
The $135 million project, which kicked off last summer, is not expected to be complete until the end of 2013, but developers have already chosen many finishes. Kitchens will have quartz counters, Bosch appliances and Bertazzoni ovens. Bathrooms will have Italian tile walls and floors, Kohler tubs, and under-floor radiant heat. Bath mirrors will be defoggable with the flick of a switch; a portion of mirror surface will have a television built in.
Rents for the three-bedrooms, which will be on the corners with views of Broadway, are expected to be $90 a square foot, Mr. Scaglion said, and one-bedrooms, which will average 700 square feet, could cost around $80 a square foot. That comes out to around $13,000 and $4,750 per month, respectively. (Twenty percent of the units will be offered below market rents for qualifying tenants.)
The average rent in May for a one-bedroom on the Upper West Side was $3,471 a month, or about $60 a square foot, according to MNS, a real estate brokerage.
One factor working in the Larstrand’s favor is that it will come to market with little in the way of competition, since many development plans were deferred during the recession, said Andrew Barrocas, the chief executive of MNS. With limited inventory and strong demand, vacancy rates have fallen into the low single digits, so rental projects that open in the next two years are in a great position, he said. “I was blown away by what the rents ended up being for the Corner,” Mr. Barrocas said, “and I expect this building to do just as well.”
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