Developers now have an extra month to prepare their bids for one of the last soft sites in Times Square—303 West 42nd Street.
Thomas Simmonds, the project manager of the site, said the sellers pushed the deadline back from April 30 to May 30 “unofficially,” thanks to the enormous interest in the space.
But would-be bidders, beware: no cheapskates allowed. The sellers, we’re told, are not interested in bids of less than $400 a buildable square foot.
“We would not even consider $300 to $400 a square foot,” said Mr. Simmonds. “We’ve been offered a lot more.”
Mr. Simmonds estimated the lot has nearly 300,000 buildable square feet, which means the owners don’t plan on turning it over for less than $120 million.
He’s confident the owners, identified as 303 West 42nd Street LLC and 300 West 43rd Street LLC, will get that which they seek, since, as Mr. Simmonds put it, “Every major real estate developer in New York has expressed an interest in doing something with this property.”
But Eric Michael Anton, executive managing director of Eastern Consolidated, was dubious.
“It’s probably worth $400 a foot, if you are a superstrong developer with a plan and a flag, and you have the money,” Mr. Anton said. “But in the market right now, land may still be very expensive, but the reality is nobody is selling, because no one has the financing [to buy].”
Mr. Anton also pointed out that the site is “an awkward development project” because the sellers don’t own the Duane Reade drug store bordered by two wings of the property. That segment is owned by a Jeff Sutton partnership.
“I think it will be tough to sell, and I don’t think it will happen so fast,” Mr. Anton said.
The site is actually a combination of two properties—303 West 42nd, a 12-story apartment and office building; and 300 West 43rd Street, the Times Square Arts Center.
It’s also home to Show World, a miniature version of onetime porn impresario Richard Basciano’s legendarily spic-and-span smut shop, once described as “the McDonald’s of the sex industry,” complete with a stripper carousel.
Mr. Simmonds declined to link the trust selling the site to Mr. Basciano, but PropertyShark did it for him, listing Mr. Basciano’s name on top of the location’s “billing address.”
