A newly acquired office property in Lower Manhattan will be redeveloped into a 300‑unit mixed‑use apartment building, joining a wave of office‑to‑residential conversion projects that has pushed the area’s population above 70,000 for the first time.
CSC Real Estate, the investment firm that acquired 75 Maiden Lane in October, plans to convert the property into a 300‑unit apartment building, Salo Smeke, managing partner and head of acquisitions at CSC, said in an interview. CSC purchased the 172,040‑square‑foot office building, along with an adjacent 2,241‑square‑foot parking lot at 13 Gold St., for a combined $45.19 million, according to CoStar data.
The plan comes as Lower Manhattan’s transformation from a traditional 9‑to‑5 business district into a 24/7 residential neighborhood shows little sign of slowing. The neighborhood’s estimated residential population surpassed 70,000 residents in 2025, including an increase of 3,900 residents last year alone, as 14 office‑to‑residential conversion projects have been announced over the past two years, according to the Alliance for Downtown New York. Those projects have also helped push Lower Manhattan’s office vacancy rate lower for a seventh consecutive quarter, the alliance’s data show.
Unlike many residential conversion projects that market upscale amenities such as indoor swimming pools, outdoor terraces or luxury fitness centers, Smeke said 75 Maiden will compete primarily on price.
Amenities at the property will be “very basic,” he told CoStar News. “You can rent across the street for $100 a foot, or you can rent [from us] for $70 a foot,” Smeke said. “You can have the padel court and everything like that and pay $2,000 more a month. Or you can do it with me and pay $2,000 less, and rent a gym membership. … Downtown has every amenity. … We cannot compete with amenities. … It’s a fool’s errand to compete on amenities, because everybody’s going to do the newest and the better.”
The project will tap New York state’s 467‑m tax exemption program, which is designed to encourage office‑to‑residential conversions, Smeke said.
CSC is taking a similar approach at another conversion project in midtown Manhattan, where it is redeveloping an office building at 300 E. 42nd St. after acquiring the property last year.
Amenities there also will remain “basic,” Smeke said. The building, at 42nd Street and Second Avenue, sits directly across from the massive conversion of the former Pfizer headquarters at 219 and 235 E. 42nd St. That project is expected to deliver more than 1,600 apartments and over 100,000 square feet of amenities, according to one of the lenders.
CSC purchased the roughly 240,000‑square‑foot midtown property in April for $52 million, according to CoStar data. The building currently houses office tenants including the Consulate General of Jamaica, CoStar data shows. CSC plans to convert the non-office portion into 135 apartment units.
Office tenants will remain in place under CSC’s plan, Smeke said. The firm consolidated tenants into the first four floors, which it then sold as a stand-alone office property, while the remaining space is being converted to residential use.
“We’re in the sushi business,” Smeke said at a commercial sales brokers breakfast Wednesday hosted by the Real Estate Board of New York, using a building‑as‑fish analogy. “You can chop it up in the best possible way ... and maximize the value of each piece.”