Potamkin block sale

Lois Weiss

BETWEEN THE BRICKS

The Potamkin family wants to sell an entire East Harlem block that has the potential for more than 765,000 square feet of housing. The full block has an address of 2485 Second Ave. between East 127th and 128th Streets and runs to Third Avenue.

Currently, Potamkin operates a Hyundai and Mitsubishi dealership in one building, and leases out another that was previously a GM dealership for Chevrolet and Cadillac.

The auto dealerships had been announced with great fanfare at a 2004 ceremony attended by Mayor Bloomberg, General Motors' then-CEO Rick Wagoner and Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Dan Brinzac

NO MOTOR CITY: Mayor Mike Bloomberg (left) at the opening of a GM dealership in East Harlem, which has since closed and is being put up for sale by the Potamkin family.

But this past January, after what a GM spokeswoman said was four years of operations and "millions of dollars" in losses and support, GM shut the dealerships. Potamkin, the site's owner, let GM out of the remaining 11 years of its Harlem lease and instead rented it a Potamkin-owned building at 704 Eleventh Ave. along Auto Row.

Alan Potamkin told us GM's original move to Harlem was made to counteract what were expected to be very high future rents on Eleventh Avenue and fleeing dealerships. Instead, Auto Row has become revitalized with glitzy dealerships from the likes of BMW, Mercedes and Volkswagen, thus providing GM with an impetus to return.

Now, looking to cash in on the residential resurgence of Harlem, Potamkin wants to sell the entire Harlem blockfront.

Potamkin, who shares the co-chair title with his brother, Robert, has already consulted the city's top sales brokers, who advised him to wait until September. But since he called us, we're giving you a heads up, even though the brokers won't be too happy.

Potamkin feels the city will allow a rezoning of the 103,000 square foot block because the auto dealer developers bought it at the same time the city sold two other blocks that were then rezoned for housing.

But hey, Potamkin says he's also open to offers for leasing and adaptive reuse of the 200,000 square foot building, 60,000 square feet of currently unused floor area, and parking for well over 70 cars.

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Lacoste is leasing a new, 4,800 square foot spot at 541 Broadway that was previously a Foot Locker. The asking rent was $550 a square foot. Lacoste had a smaller store on Prince Street that was converted to its L!VE concept late last year.

The new store will sell all Lacoste, all the time, and open for the holiday season, sources said.

Gene Spiegelman and Michael O'Neill of Cushman & Wakefield represented Lacoste, while the building was represented by an agent from Andrews Building Corp.