America’s largest office-to-res conversion poised to open in New York City
The largest office-to-residential conversion in the U.S. to date has started leasing.
The 32-story SoMA, located at a nexus of New York City’s financial district, Battery Park, and Seaport, had previously been home to JPMorgan Chase, the Daily News, and the National Enquirer tabloid. The rental tower now offers 1,320 apartments and about 100,000 sf of lifestyle amenities that include indoor and outdoor lounges and pools, a spa, and a full fitness center complete with pickleball courts. The gym is part of an 18,000-sf Athletic Club with studios for training, Pilates, and yoga.
SoMA (shorthand for South Manhattan), which is near completion, is the first conversion to use New York State’s 467-m housing tax incentive, which facilitates the incorporation of affordable housing into conversion projects. (The website StreetEasy reports that market-rate rents at SoMA range from $3,855 to $8,630 per month. SoMA’s website states that its studios alone range from $3,436 to $7,671.) SoMA also participated in the city’s Office Conversion Accelerator program set up to cut red tape. That program now has 83 buildings in the process of designing residential conversions.
Mayor Eric Adams wants to add 500,000 housing units to New York’s inventory over the next decade. 467-m and other actions are expected to produce more than 20,000 housing units.
Apartments include home-office space
SoMA offers a range of options, from studio apartments to three-bedroom residences, as well as a limited collection of penthouses. The majority of residences has been outfitted with home-office space. Other design characteristics include high interior ceilings, custom Italian kitchens with paneled appliances, custom solar shades, and high-speed WiFi. The building’s programmed spaces offer wellness, social, and entertainment experiences for tenants of all ages: these include a bowling alley, an arcade, sports simulators, a virtual-reality studio; a children’s playroom, other spaces for karaoke and poker, and a coworking area called The Nook. A landscaped roof terrace provides views of downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn, and is equipped with grilling stations, private dining space, and an indoor serenity lounge.
Additional amenities include on-site parking, music rehearsal rooms, a podcast room, and an art maker’s studio.
Location and mass make SoMA stand out
The architecture and interior design firm CetraRuddy leveraged the property’s height and location to showcase its water views, making them a signature of the living experience at SoMA. The firm collaborated on this conversion with a development team made up of GFP Real Estate, Metro Loft, and the real-estate investment firm Rockwell Capital, which provided financial backing.
“Converting office spaces into residential buildings has become a crucial strategy for reimagining New York City’s real estate landscape, with neighborhoods like the Financial District transforming into highly sought-after residential areas,” said Brian Steinwurtzel, Co-CEO and Principal of GFP Real Estate, in a prepared statement.
Because of its mass and location, SoMA presented “a singular opportunity” beyond other office-to-res conversions that Metro Loft has been involved with, said Nathan Berman, the developer’s Founder. “It’s no exaggeration to say that SoMA is a unique and completely unprecedented project in both scale and vision,” added John Cetra, FAIA, Founding Principal of CetraRuddy.
LIVunLtd is providing SoMA’s concierge services, and Compass Development Marketing Group is this project’s leasing and marketing partner.
