The vacant office building at 241 Fifth Avenue is sandwiched in a narrow 52-foot-wide space between a cafe and a museum of Sex, but there is virtually no limit to expansion.
That made the property attractive for 241 Fifth Ave. Hotel, LLC, a privately held real estate joint venture that recently purchased the four-story office space building for $26.5 million. The purchaser also acquired an additional 13,000 square feet of air development rights from the adjacent property.

Five years ago, we set out a vision for a new Lower Manhattan, a vision of a vibrant global hub of culture and commerce, a live-and-work-and-visit community for the world. We set out a plan for investing in our Downtown, investments that would connect it to the rest of the City and the world, build new neighborhoods, and create new public places.

As a result of the dark days of the 1970s and early 1980s, when there was a lack of commercial tenants, thousands of "Interim Multiple Dwelling" or IMD buildings, aow exist throughout the city. Not anticipating that there could ever be an upturn in the commercial market, landlords welcomed either small commercial tenants or illegal residential tenants into their buildings at whatever rent they could get.

In a field that can sometimes be as impersonal as real estate, those who are in it not only to make a living but to make a difference in people`s lives are sometimes few and far between. For Daniel Roubeni, founder and president of up and coming boutique real estate brokers Metro Spire, money alone clearly isn`t the object.