The New School is asking for $20 million for a West Village townhouse that has traditionally housed the president of the university, according to Sotheby’s International Realty. Sotheby’s has also begun holding appointment-only showings of the home.
The university confirmed in a statement to The New School Free Press that it will continue to provide housing for the President, though they did not say where or how much it will cost.
If sold at asking price, the townhouse – known as the Scatturo House – could remedy 35% of the university’s budget deficit, which is projected to surge to $57 million, according to meetings hosted by Mark Diaz, the interim executive vice president of business and operations.
The 4,038-square-foot townhouse is made up of five stories, encompassing four bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms. On the top floor of the home is a private guest-suite fit with a mini-fridge and Peloton bike.
At the back of the house, behind a two-story atrium wall is a 900 square feet landscaped outdoor garden and patio. The home was last majorly renovated in the early 2000s, but has kept some historical charm including two antique marble fireplaces and an original mahogany staircase.
When the Free Press first broke the story of the university’s intent to sell the property, the news was met with an overwhelmingly positive response from the New School community.
“F—ing finally” user @pink.tomboy commented under a Free Press Instagram post. User @jillenfield said “About time!!!”
Chair of TNS economics department, Sanjay Reddy, told The New York Times that “those in the room broke out clapping” upon hearing the news at a faculty meeting.
At the height of the townhouse’s controversy during the Fall 2022 adjunct-faculty strike, protestors demanded that it would be “treated as a communal property of The New School and used for purposes determined by the non-administrative TNS community.”
The university is currently considering ways to use owned real estate to generate income. In spring of last year, TNS called on the community to submit initiatives that may remedy the budget deficit. Of these options, two selected proposals related to owned property usage — “Venue Lease and Summer Housing” and “Optimizing Real Estate Portfolio and Space Usage.”
The former involves marketing, advertising, and promoting the rental of “otherwise idle space.” The latter proposes the transition from occupying rented spaces to already owned ones, since as a not for profit institution the university is not required to pay real-estate taxes on properties used for educational purposes.
“I think that one way or another, whether it had been rented out for the income that would be generated or whether — what is now being done — sold, it would have been a positive measure,” Reddy told the Free Press. “What’s primary is that the university is actually scrutinizing these things and making that decision.”
