Standing on a concrete pad on a busy construction site above the Thruway in Yonkers, condo developer David Marom called the $48-million, glass-sheathed tower that rose behind him “a rare sight these days, especially on this scale.” Yonkers Mayor Philip Amicone and others in his upward-gazing audience would agree.
Marom, president of The Horizon Group, a metropolitan real estate and development company, spoke at a recent topping-out ceremony for the first tower of the Monarch, a 13-story, 162-unit building nearing completion at the western edge of Westchester”™s Ridge Hill, the 1.3-million-square-foot, mixed-use development of Brooklyn-based Forest City Ratner Companies. To be built in phases, the Monarch project when fully developed will include 500 luxury condo units in four towers and a 25,000-square-foot atrium that will house an amenities center for residents. The project”™s total cost has been estimated at $240 million.
Marom and his joint-venture partners, the Israeli real estate companies Izaki Group Investment and Azorim, in 2006 agreed to join Forest City Ratner in its Ridge Hill “village” concept as the separate developer of its condo component. Forest City Ratner plans to develop rental housing at the eastern edge of the 81-acre property.
Marom began site work in fall 2007. Then the economic downturn and recession forced the Monarch”™s developers to alter construction plans and build the towers in four phases.
The first tower is about 75 percent complete. Marom said the first condo owner is expected to move in next spring, at the same time that Forest City Ratner is scheduled to open Ridge Hill”™s retail and office space.
Prices of one-bedroom condos at the Monarch currently start in the low $300,000s and two-bedroom homes start in the low $400,000s.
Christopher Meyers, chief operating officer at Houlihan Lawrence in Bronxville, the Monarch”™s sales and marketing agent, said house prices in Westchester are down 20 percent to 25 percent from the market peak in 2007. “They are trading at roughly 2003, 2004 price levels,” he said. That is a big improvement from the market depths reached in spring 2009, he said.
Since Houlihan Lawrence began low-key marketing of the Monarch about two months ago, the broker already has scheduled 200 buyer appointments, Meyers said. Eldad Blaustein, a Monarch development partner, said seven sale contracts and 18 reservation agreements have been signed.
“In the environment we”™ve been in,” Meyers said, “it”™s probably the greatest start we”™ve seen for a new construction project since before the downturn hit.”
Blaustein said most buyers who signed agreements are from the nearby Westchester area, including Yonkers, Bronxville and Mount Vernon. “It”™s a very diversified type of buyer,” he said. They include first-time home buyers, young persons drawn to the “new phenomenon” of urban-village living and others in their mid-50s downsizing from houses, Blaustein said.
“I wish the market would be like four years ago,” Marom said, “but we”™re looking for the future and were hoping that in 2011 the market will be good again. The supply is really dried out. Hopefully when we open, we”™ll be basically the only ones in the market.”
