Spence School pays $10M for Madison Avenue mixed-use buildings in Carnegie Hill

The Spence School, a private all-girls school for grades kindergarten to 12th, through the entity 1307 Madison Ave Holding LLC, paid $10 million to Jouvay Realty LLC and PYML Associates LLC for two walkups (C7) at 1307-1309 Madison Avenue between 92nd and 93rd street, in Carnegie Hill, Manhattan. The expected use is owner-occupied.

The sellers were affiliates of Sierra Real Estate and Suzanne Bachner. The signatories for the sellers were Peter Braus and Suzanne Bachner. The signatory for the buyer was Bruce Orem, CFO and COO at the Spence School. The contract date was the same as the closing date.

The sale was brokered by a team at CBRE led by Daniel Kaplan that represented the Spence School, and a team led by Thomas Gammino at Lee & Associates NYC that marketed the property and represented the sellers.

The sale is another highlighting the trend of owner-occupier buyers.

According to the Lee & Associates listing, “Current configuration of the building includes one ground floor commercial space, two 2nd floor commercial spaces, 5 free-market units, and 1 rent-stabilized unit. The residential units consist of 4 studios and 2 three bedroom duplexes with internal staircases. The property’s commercial leases are set to expire in 2025 and 2027 with an average remaining lease term of 2.3 years, allowing for flexibility and reconfiguration if the new owner would like to renovate and re-tenant the building.”

The property

The walkup building with seven residential units in Carnegie Hill has 11,424 square feet of built space and 18,174 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 29,600 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has two buildings with frontage of 40 feet and is 74 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,960 square feet. The zoning is R10 which allows for up to 10 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential with inclusionary housing. The property is in the Expanded Carnegie Hill Historic District. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $9 million.

Development

Over the past five years, there has been no NYC Department of Buildings new building, demolition, or alteration permit application valued at more than $20,000 filed for this parcel.

Violations and lawsuits

According to city public data, the property has received $50 in OATH penalties in the last year.

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months.

The neighborhood

In Carnegie Hill, The majority, or 56 percent of the 13.5 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 18 percent of the space. In sales, Carnegie Hill has near average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $819.3 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 12th highest in Manhattan. For development, Carnegie Hill has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 26th highest in Manhattan. It had 1.1 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 8 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of three of the 19 commercial properties representing 64,765 square feet of the 283,586 square feet. The largest owner is Adellco, followed by Kamran Hakim and then Maria Quinn. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The owner

The owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Peter Braus, head officer and Charles Hughes Hubbard, officer. The business entity is Pyml Associates Llc.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 1307 Madison Avenue, PincusCo identified seven commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those seven items, six were sales above $5 million totaling $65.1 million. The most recent of the six was Maria Quinn and Gregory Quinn which bought the 6,090-square-foot, 14-unit rental (C5) on 22 East 93rd Street for $6.8 million from Fred Licht on December 31, 2024. One of those seven items was a loan which Nelson Braff and Keith Kantrowitz borrowed $5 million from Wells Fargo secured by one condo unit in the zero-square-foot, 23-unit mixed-use building (RM) on 1295 Madison Avenue on November 21, 2023.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page and link to DOB NOW portal.