An office building in Harlem has become the first building in New York City, and one of the first in the country, to be listed on the stock market in its own right. Located at 286 Lenox Avenue, the 18,759-square-foot building holds four floors of office and retail, with three tenants including Wells Fargo.

As of last week, any investor can buy shares in the building, which trades under the stock ticker TESLU. Since going public last Wednesday, the share price has fluctuated from its initial $250 per share, with a high of $255 and a low of $241.

The shares are being sold by the building’s owners Regal Capital Acquisitions, who are selling 8,600 shares (49% of the building’s equity), which they hope will raise $2.15 million. Regal paid $10.2 million in March 2020 to purchase the property, which sits on the site of the now-demolished Lenox Lounge jazz bar that once hosted stars such as Billie Holiday and Miles Davis.

The building is a rare example of individuals investing in a single publicly traded building. The trading is being overseen by LEX Markets, who describe their platform as “a new way to invest in real estate” where any investor can buy equity shares in a single building. The company’s other publicly traded property, a 600-space parking garage in Portland, Maine, has been trading for over one year with a current share price of $241.

The company is also planning to float a recently completed mixed-use building in Seattle, WA with 45 residential and one retail unit, and a 450,000-square-foot industrial building from 1915 in Nashua, NH. Both buildings will have an expected share price of $250.

While this novel approach to real estate investing could be presented as a democratization of property assets, others warn that the approach carries risk. Speaking to Crain’s New York Business last year about the Harlem building, investment banker David Eyzenberg warned: “If I’m not a sophisticated investor, I have no way of knowing whether this is a good deal or a bad deal. I can see a lot of pitfalls for investors. You better really understand what you’re doing.”

The trend is one of many unorthodox real estate stories we have reported on in recent times. At the beginning of the year, ONE Sotheby’s unveiled a digital twin NFT of a home in Miami, while last year, Paul Rudolph’s Edersheim Residence was also listed as an NFT.

Back in February, meanwhile, Disney unveiled designs for a real estate development in the Coachella Valley that would see residents living in a real-life fairy-tale.