Milsteins to unload all of their UWS Dorchester Towers condos 

Ogden CAP Properties, a real estate investment firm owned by a branch of the Milstein family, is selling all of its 324 condo units at the Dorchester Towers on the Upper West Side — and giving its residents a scoop on the $375 million offering.

The units at 155 West 68th Street are scheduled to hit the open market on June 6. Andrew Phillips and Amelia Gewirtz of Brown Harris Stevens Development Marketing have the listings.

Until then, tenants have until May 6 to buy their apartment, and owners have 30 days after that to buy additional units in the building. Tenants with leases about to expire can renew. 

Ogden will offer a co-broker commission once units are available to the public, according to internal Brown Harris communications viewed by The Real Deal. 

The brokerage is lining up preferred mortgage lenders for the sale. Due to the high concentration of units owned by Milstein’s Ogden, past buyers at the Dorchester have struggled to obtain mortgage financing. With the owner intent on selling, lenders see less risk. 

The 683-unit Dorchester spans more than 600,000 square feet on a trapezoidal piece of land, resulting in a wide variety of floorplans, views and prices. Overall, however, the asking prices are in line with median figures for the neighborhood, according to Redfin data.

The median home price in February on the Upper West Side was $1,300 per square foot, with a median sticker price of $1.1 million.  

At the Dorchester, studios range from $980 to $1,600 per square foot, one-bedrooms from $1,100 to $1,700 per square foot and two-bedrooms from $1,100 to $1,750 per square foot. 

Residential prices have fallen in the neighborhood from a median high of $1.8 million in 2020, according to Redfin, when near-zero interest rates created a national buying frenzy.

The Dorchester, built in the 1960s, was Paul and Seymour Milstein’s first major real estate development. The brothers made up the first generation of the hugely successful family real estate dynasty, which began building in Manhattan alongside the Rudins and Dursts.

The second-generation Milsteins were less united, however, and two years after Seymour’s death in 2001, the family split its holdings between Milstein Properties — controlled by Paul’s sons Howard and Edward (Paul died in 2010) — and Ogden CAP, created by Seymour’s children Philip and Connie, which took five of the family’s major residential buildings, including the Dorchester Towers and the massive 1,477-unit Normandie Court on East 96th Street.

The Dorchester was converted to a condo building in 1984, with Ogden retaining ownership of about half the building’s units. The company plans to stay on as manager at the property. 

As for greener branches on the Milstein family tree, Toby Milstein and her brother Larry, who are Philip’s children, were last seen conjuring the spirit of Leonard Bernstein with fellow socialites at a séance hosted in the composer’s former Dakota apartment, also owned by the Milsteins.

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