A developer eyeing a major office-to-rental conversion in Midtown is looking to part with a much-smaller multifamily site on the Upper East Side.
Sal Smeke, a managing partner of CSC Real Estate, has listed 28 E. 72nd St., a five-apartment mixed-use property, according to an ad that appeared Thursday. The asking price of the 5,400-square-foot building near Madison Avenue is $15 million.
Smeke paid $12 million for the 5-story, limestone-walled edifice in 2015, based on the city register, and so could notch a 25% profit if he gets the asking price.
Though some apartment buildings have sold at steep losses in recent months, those properties have typically been packed with rent-stabilized units, which don’t provide the same returns for investors as they used to.
But No. 28’s units all charge market-rate rents, its ad says. In November a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment with 12-foot ceilings and a decorative fireplace was listed for $4,500 a month, according to StreetEasy.
The prewar walkup-style building, which sits in a landmarked district, also comes with a hefty 9,200 square feet of air rights, according to its marketing materials.
Its commercial tenants, meanwhile, include Pat Saling Collection, which specializes in rare jewelry and opened there last year. It replaced Nicholas Brawer Gallery, which specializes in antique binoculars and was located at the address from 2008 to 2024.
High-end apparel company Ralph Lauren, which operates a men’s store at next-door 867 Madison Ave., leases No. 28’s other retail berth for storage, based on the listing from Brown Harris Stevens. For much of the last couple of years, a sidewalk shed for an extensive facade restoration project at the adjacent Ralph Lauren site, which is also known as the Rhinelander Mansion, obscured a portion of No. 28’s facade.
No. 28’s commercial tenants pay an average rent of $150 per square foot annually, according to an estimate by real estate data provider CoStar.
Farther downtown, Smeke is reportedly about to embark on an extensive conversion of the office floors of 300 E. 42nd St., an 18-story, 235,000-square-foot office building at Second Avenue, based on reporting by Commercial Observer. The project, which will yield 135 rental units, will be apparently be partially financed with a $45 million loan from Northwind Group secured last month.
CSC Real Estate will also reportedly seek 467-m tax breaks, which are awarded to conversion projects that create some affordable housing.
Smeke, as is the case with some other real estate executives, has been a steadfast supporter of Mayor Eric Adams, even donating to Adams’ campaign after FBI officers raided some of his staff members’ homes two years ago in a corruption probe. Indeed, in November 2023 Smeke donated the legal limit of $2,100 to Adams; on the same day a Marcelle Smeke and Freda Smeke, who live in Deal, New Jersey, as Sal Smeke does, also contributed $2,100 a piece, based on city Campaign Finance Board public records.
Active in the U.S. and Mexico, CSC locally has invested in such neighborhoods as Hudson Yards, Harlem and Chelsea with hotel, church conversion and multifamily properties, including 410 W. 36th St., a 24-unit rental that, according to the company’s website, was once “primarily occupied by below-market leases.”
CSC, which appears to have been brought in as a partner on the property in 2012 under its previous name, Salt Equities, sold No. 410 in 2015 for $6.7 million, the register shows.
A phone message left at Smeke’s Manhattan office was not returned by press time. And Lucia Smeke, the Brown Harris Stevens agent handling the listing, had no comment by press time.
