“There is an oversupply of overpriced, mediocre product,” he said in an interview last month at his Midtown office. “There’s still an under-supply of great product in great locations, and that is really where I see the opportunity.”
Shvo said he’s focused on data showing potential for a growing pool of buyers. The number of individuals worldwide with more than $30 million of assets, excluding their primary home, jumped 61 percent in the past decade and is projected to rise 41 percent by 2025, according to the latest Wealth Report by Knight Frank and Douglas Elliman Real Estate. Within the next 12 months, 29 percent of these “ultra high net worth individuals” will consider buying another home, the report showed.
Getty Site
At his Chelsea site -- a former Getty gas station on 10th Avenue near 24th Street, purchased for $23.5 million -- sales are set to begin on the six luxury units by July at prices Shvo declined to disclose. The project, designed by Peter Marino, whose credits list stores for luxury brands Chanel and Dior, will include art galleries at its base. The building will have five full-floor apartments and one duplex penthouse, which will be bigger than 6,000 square feet (557 square meters), according to early filings with the New York State attorney general’s office. The project is a joint venture with the Victor Group.
Shvo is aiming for a broader market at 125 Greenwich St., where he’s leading a partnership that’s planning to build lower Manhattan’s tallest residential tower, at more than 1,000 feet (305 meters). Eighty percent of the 275 apartments will be listed for less than $3 million, including 58 studios, some as small as 400 square feet, Shvo said. The biggest share of units, 129, will be one-bedrooms.
‘Like Caviar’
“It’s, in essence, like caviar,” Shvo said of the condos in the 91-story tower. “You get a small portion and it’s expensive, but you’re getting a small piece of it because you only need a taste.”
The foundation is being poured for the project, which has gotten about $175 million from the EB-5 visa program and is close to obtaining about $500 million in construction financing from United Overseas Bank in Singapore.
There has been litigation tied to the property, with Carlton Group, a real estate investment-banking firm, claiming that Shvo and his partners failed to pay $3.66 million in commissions after the firm arranged financing for 125 Greenwich St. Shvo said the lawsuit won’t delay plans for the building and declined to comment further. Unit sales will start by late August, with completion expected in 2018, he said.
Shvo also is a partner on a 115-unit ground-up project on Broome Street in Soho, where sales are set to start by the end of next month. And he has plans for a residential-and-hotel conversion of the upper levels of the Crown Building on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. He bought the floors last year with Russian developer Vladislav Doronin for $475 million. On Monday, Shvo said he’s pursuing a similar purchase and conversion at 685 Fifth Ave.