The Metropolitan Life insurance company, which said last month it was considering selling its large Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town properties in New York, said on Wednesday it had received “significant interest” from a wide array of potential bidders.

Together, the properties make up the largest apartments complex in Manhattan. The vast housing projects were built in the postwar years as affordable homes for the working class and comprise more than 11,200 units, spread over 80 acres along New York’s East River. They represent a trophy – at least in terms of their size – in the city’s residential real estate market.