Katherine Clarke, The Daily News, June 12, 2015
Call him the modern-day John Jacob Astor.
Real-estate bigwig Ziel Feldman, head of development giant HFZ Capital Group, is reinventing the last of the Upper West Side’s grand prewar apartment houses for contemporary buyers, many of whom want the history without the headaches.
The buildings are a throwback to the days before the subway even reached the neighborhood, when the Upper West Side was still characterized by swaths of open space and Astor, the first multimillionaire in the history of the United States, collected land like Imelda Marcos collected shoes.
Most have fallen into disrepair, but the bones are unbeatable, Feldman said.
“Just, look at this! I’m a builder, and I can’t build this,” he said of a prewar building he’s converting to co-ops at 344 W. 72nd St. “It’s way too expensive. This would cost a fortune to build from scratch nowadays, and you’d have to sell it for some crazy number to make any money.”
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“Buildings like the Belnord were the best of their kind when they were built. Now they will be again.”
Ziel Feldman
