Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Ben Shaoul’s ‘affordable luxury’ condo in Gramercy gets another name change

The 20-story building is struggling to sell its 138 condos

Nearly a year after sales launched at Ben Shaoul's Gramercy condo conversion at 385 First Avenue, the 20-story tower is getting a name change—the second one since Shaoul purchased this former rental building in 2014.

Shaoul's Magnum Real Estate is hoping that changing the building's name to Coda will spur sales, The Real Deal reports. The development team however declined to go into details about sales figures at the development. StreetEasy shows that 34 of the building's 138 apartments are currently in contract. That doesn't seem promising a year on from the sales launch, but it's not quite dismal either.

Real estate experts The Real Deal spoke with said the name change is unlikely to make much of a difference—that's all the more alarming considering this is the second name change for the building. When Shaoul purchased the rental, it was named Post Luminaria. In a change that was perhaps not all that creative, the building was renamed Luminaire after that.

The change also comes with a new sales and marketing team (who initiated the name change after taking over, according to TRD). Compass has been shown the door and Corcoran Sunshine has been brought on instead.

Magnum also purchased a rental on the Upper East Side from the same firm that sold him Post Luminaria. Post Toscana, as that Upper East Side development was known, is now simply known as 389 East 89th Street, and for now it seems like that name is staying the same.

Will the switch to Coda mean better luck for Shaoul's Gramercy condo? Sound off in our comments below.

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