The top 10 floors of the massive Mercedes House have been sold off to an investor. (Urban Edition)

The second phase under construction. (Skyscraper City)

For more than a year now, ever since the very first rental units at the monolithic, magnificent Mercedes House came on the market, Two Trees Management has been debating what to do with the rest of its zig-zagging luxury building on the Far West Side of Manhattan. The massive block-long project was a gamble for the Brooklyn firm, about as big and brash and far away from its home turf in Dumbo as one could get (without going to Godforbid, N.J.).

Mercedes House was built in two phases, a swooping base and a connected tower. There would be two sets of rentals, and, the cherry on top, a contingent of condos crowning the 1.3-million-square-foot building, with better finishes and excellent views, on floors 22 through 32. "Everything was high end," Two Trees managing director Asher Abehsera told The Observer late last week.

He had called in part to set the record straight about the sale of those condos units in a block to Invesco, the Atlanta-based investment management group, that was widely reported last week. Mr. Abehsera was annoyed by the apparent suggestion in some outlets that the 162 condos, which had traded for $170 million, had somehow been sold from a position of weakness, which he insisted was not what happened. "It was totally not the case that we could not sell the condos individually," he said. "It was that we found a deal that met our numbers, and met them quite nicely."

According to Mr. Abehsera, he had reached out personally to a few long-time partners—no brokers, just him and his professional pals—and Invesco came back with a deal that worked for all the units, so why wait? Why waste time and money on condo offerings, marketing, sales? "The idea was, for them, their worst apartment started on the 22nd floor and almost every one has water views," Mr. Abehsera said. So it was a good deal for both sides.

An Invesco representative declined to comment on the deal.

It does fit a pattern for the firm, though. Earlier this year, Invesco bought two nascent condo projects in Brooklyn, 75 Clinton in the Heights and the Arias in Park Slope, and is in the process of converting them into rentals. "This is not a new strategy for them," one person familiar with the deal said.

Mr. Abehsera said that Mercedes House is starting to fit the pattern for residential development in the city, which remains difficult because of lending standards, especially on 80/20 projects where one-fifth of the units are set aside for affordable housing (albeit in exchange for subsidies)."Large-scale 80/20 projects today in Manhattan is just not economically viable anymore," he said.

"Look at us and MiMA," Mr. Abehsera continued. "You sell off the bottom, in our case to Mercedes, in theirs the Yotel, you build a mix of rentals in the middle, and you put condos on top, but maybe you sell them in a block instead of pieces," he said. Like the Mercedes House, though, the rental market has proven so strong that Related decided to swap its top-of-the-line, top-of-the-tower 1 MiMA condos for high-end rentals.

"Simply put, we achieved the value we were seeking," Mr. Abehsera said.

Tech-Savvy MiMA Tower! (Courtesy of Streeteasy)

At the same time that some apartment buildings are emphasizing those weird pre-technological places called libraries, others are boosting up their tech teams to plug you in when you move in.

Related, the real estate developers behind MiMA and One MiMA Tower, has implemented a technology concierge service that will handle tasks from hanging televisions to troubleshooting a home office network, The New York Times reports.

"We’re always looking for what’s on the horizon," Daria Salusbury, senior vice president of Related, told The Times. "What feedback are we getting from residents? It took a little while to figure out that this was a trend, and that’s when we said, ‘We understand technology is really important in everybody’s lifestyle, and we need to embrace that.'"

New residents will receive one free hour of consultation and one free hour of installation. Mrs. Salusbury further noted that large projects will be charged in a lump sum and that "most smaller jobs will be billed by the hour, at a rate to be determined, but competitive with what a chain store like Best Buy would charge."

Related plans to expand it to their portfolio of over 5,000 units within the next month. It remains to be seen whether the concierges will be inundated with calls from the technologically challenged, but at least someone is finally tackling the daunting waits for internet services in this city.

mewing@observer.com

Pop would be so proud. (William Alatriste)

Mayor Bloomberg has set an ambitious agenda for his final two years in office. No, not finally fixing the schools, reforming the pensions or redeveloping Willets Point. Those are the easy ones.

“You should know that Frank and I had a conversation backstage,” the mayor said at the opening of the Signature Theater today, “and we both committed to each other that we would get 10 more Frank Gehry projects going here—in the next 700 days. If my math is any good, Frank, that is one every 70 days, so we should meet some time later today to get going.”

New York has actually faired quite well in the Frank Gehry department. The Signature Theater—now known as the Pershing Square Signature Theater thanks to a $25 million donation from hedge fund manager Bill Ackman—is his third building here. It follows after Barry Diller’s IAC Building and Bruce Ratner’s New York by Frank Gehry, that undulating apartment building downtown, of which the mayor is quite fond. “Every day I walk out of City Hall, I look at a Frank Gehry building,” he said, calling it “a great building.”

Gotham has delivered Gehry some notable failures, particularly the new Times headquarters and an East River Guggenheim, and the World Trade Center performing arts center, where he first met the Signature team and where the Joyce still plans to go, continues to languish. Still, New York boasts more Gehrys than any city outside of California, including another of his performance center at Bard, just a MetroNorth ride away.

Very Gehry: Take a Tour Behind the Curtain >>

It turns out Mr. Gehry’s connection to the city, and the site of the new Signature, at the corner of 10th and 42nd, is quite strong. “My father was born in New York City in 1900,” Mr. Gehry, wearing a tweed blazer, black t-shirt and jeans, said from the dais. “He was a street urchin in Hell’s Kitchen, it was a very poor family, and he was worried all his life, he kept calling me a dreamer, and he said ‘you’re gonna have trouble making it in this world as a dreamer.’ So I want to say, Pop, I hitched my wagon to the most incredible group of dreamers you’ll ever imagine, including the dreamiest dreamer of all, the mayor of this city, Mayor Bloomberg.” Dreamy!

And yet Mr. Gehry is not as familiar with his latest project as one might think.

“He said it’s going to be in an office building, and that has its problems,” Mr. Gehry said, referring to the early plans to relocate the Signature from Ground Zero into its new home at MiMA, a dark, 60-story glass tower developed by the Related Companies. “Putting three theaters in an office building, with the column spacing that an office building has…”

“Frank?” blurted out Related boss Steve Ross. “Frank. It’s an apartment building.”

After the laughter died down, the Pritzker Prize-winner continued. “You get to be 83, you can’t remember anybody’s name or anything,” Mr. Gehry said. “Anyway, it was formidable to come in and look at the plans and figure out where we could fit everything in.”

The real challenge will be fitting 10 more of his buildings into the city. “It was my idea,” Mr. Gehry told The Observer after the ceremony. “I said to the mayor, we need to do 10 more things like this.” And what might those be? “I don’t know,” he replied. “The Joyce Theater would be nice.” Any other dream projects in New York? “Oh, I don’t do that. I’m very superstitious.”'

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC