These Luxury Storage Units Cost More Than a Starter Home

The condominiums at 93 Worth St. in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood are appointed with high ceilings, bathtubs deep enough to drown a small horse, and rich shared amenities: a rooftop kitchen, children's playroom, and fitness facility.

Those extras help sell apartments in the former bank building, where a penthouse is listed for $9.9 million. The building perks that convert most readily to cold, hard cash, however, are in the basement: 4-foot-by-8-foot steel storage cages into which residents pile the accumulated stuff that doesn't fit into their apartments. Developer Eldad Blaustein, chief executive officer of IGI-USA, said he recently sold one such box for $65,000. That works out to about $2,000 a square foot—a higher rate than he has gotten on some of the building's apartments.