Posted on Wed, Nov. 4, 2009

PhillyDeals: Aria to discount condos

By Joseph N. DiStefano

Urban Residential, a New York developer, spent $40 million turning the 33-story Lewis Tower, at the northeast corner of 15th and Locust Streets, into the 114-unit Aria Condominiums just before the bottom fell out of the market.

More than half the condos were sold, at prices originally listing from $300,000 into the low millions. But sales stalled last year, and in January, lender Istar Financial began foreclosure.

In September, Richard Oller, a veteran Philadelphia real estate manager, and his partner, Jeffrey Goldstein, bought Istar's $23-million unpaid note and 55 unsold units at a deep discount. At yesterday's sheriff's sale, nobody offered more (the price was not disclosed and Oller wouldn't say what it was).

"We own it," Oller told me.

He's shaving an average 30 percent off the prices of the unsold units to reach the "current market."

The 2,600-square-foot, 33d-floor penthouse, with views, he promises, of both the Delaware and the Schuylkill, is marked down to $1.9 million from $3.3 million. Oller says he's got 13 deposits on units so far.