NYU Adds an East Village Dorm to its Real Estate Portfolio

Roughly one year following the $210 million purchase of the 209-unit mixed-used building located at 377 East 33rd Street in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, New York University (NYU) has purchased an East Village dormitory building. The sale of 35 Cooper Square by Sherwood Equities and Bhatia Development fetched $69.2 million, having redeveloped the site of a former federal-era house at the southeast corner of East 6th Street in 2015. While NYU is “considered one of New York City’s largest and wealthiest landlords,” due to its educational status, it benefits from real estate tax exemptions; and although NYU’s real estate holdings in the city has a total assessed value of $1.8 billion, NYU is “taxed on just $120 million of that, thus enjoying nearly $1.7 billion in savings, according to a Crain’s analysis.” The significant loss of tax revenue to the city’s coffers once again brings up the December 2023 proposal by New York State legislators in that would repeal the “tax exempt status of private universities that received real property tax exemptions of $100 million dollars or more during the prior fiscal year,” such as Columbia University and New York University. Although NYU pointed out in a letter of response at the time to the proposed legislation that the university already pays some $15 million annually in property taxes in addition to contributing to the city’s well-being and its economy through employment and a high volume of graduates that stay in the New York City area to work, without a comprehensive study to determine the true economic impact of the University’s claim, it is unclear to what extent it offsets the loss in the city’s tax revenue — which according to an October 2023 article by New York Times totaled $327 million in 2023 between NYU and Columbia University.

Source:    https://www.crainsnewyork.com/real-estate/nyu-buys-35-cooper-square-69-million

Source:    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/nyregion/columbia-nyu-property-tax-exemptions-legislation.html