11/20/08

• Home

• The Magazine

• Archives

• Webcasts

• Advertising

• Job Board

• South Florida

• Subscribe

Bracha Group tapped to represent Canco Lofts in NYC market

Canco Lofts

Prudential Douglas Elliman's Bracha Group, led by broker Ilan Bracha, has been named as the exclusive New York sales and marketing agency for Canco Lofts, a 550-unit converted factory condominium in Jersey City.

Canco Lofts, located at 50 Dey Street in Jersey City, was developed by Coalco New York, a Russian real estate developer that previously converted the Sugar Warehouse at 79 Laight Street in Tribeca.

Units range from 640-square-foot studios up to 1,663-square-foot penthouse apartments, with views of the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty. Since launching its New Jersey-based in-house sales program earlier this year, Canco Lofts has 62 units under contract at prices ranging from $315,000 to $745,000, said marketing director Ed Yorukoff, Coalco's director of marketing at the development.

Yorukoff said that while 40 percent of its units under contract have been sold to New York buyers, the company decided to retain the Bracha Group so it could attract even more New Yorkers. Coalco will retain its on-site sales staff.

Bracha representatives said they believe Canco Lofts will be particularly attractive to potential New York buyers, as the project includes finishes and amenities that are included in fewer new lofts in the city as the market slows.

"They're selling a real loft," said Mickey Roth, a partner in the Bracha Group. "That's something that used to be very common in New York, but you can't find it anymore."

Roth said this is the first time that Bracha is trying to attract New York buyers to a development outside the city. Bracha will not market the project in New Jersey, just in New York, Roth said.

The building, located within walking distance of the Journal Square PATH station, is a former factory owned by the American Can Co. New York-based SBLM designed the residences, which includes 11-foot windows, exposed concrete ceilings and columns ranging from 14 feet to 27 feet high, white oak plank hardwood floors and eight-foot doorways.

Canco Lofts includes a 10,000-square-foot residents' club, which includes a 3,800-square-foot fitness center, yoga and Pilates studio and a 2,000-square-foot event center/community lounge with wireless Internet, a pet spa, business center, children's play room, movie screening room and bicycle storage. Shuttle service to the PATH station is available eight hours a day and an onsite coffee shop, dry cleaner and convenience store are planned.

New Jersey brokers said they have been impressed by the property.

The building is "bringing this artsy, Soho-like feel of an industrial complex," said David Tobias, real estate specialist at Keller Williams Realty in North Bergen, N.J. "To have something like this in Journal Square is amazing."

The five-building property is expected to get its certificate of occupancy by August, with the first residents moving in after Labor Day, Yorukoff said. The complex's final phase is scheduled for completion by 2011.