$12M Chinatown bankruptcy filed to halt looming auction

A restaurateur and property owner filed a bankruptcy petition to halt the foreclosure sale of his four-story retail property at 42-44 East Broadway in Chinatown, Manhattan, scheduled for November 1, 2023 with a total judgment of $11.99 million. The debtor Q.Y. Tang’s Hwa Yuan Inc. according to petitioner and owner Chen Lieh Tang, bought the property in 1979 and Tang runs a restaurant and karaoke bar in the former Bank of China building, but both were harmed by Covid, according to the bankruptcy petition filed in Manhattan October 30, 2023.
Case LINK
Chen Lieh Tang pdf Q.Y. Tang’s Hwa Yuan Inc affidavit

The goal of the bankruptcy is to refinance the loan, and in order to do that, Tang and his wife may sell or use as collateral one or both of their other two assets, 236 East 53rd Street, estimated to be worth about $12 million and 98 Eighth Avenue, estimated to be worth $7 million. In addition, There is a restaurant eviction hearing November 2 and a karaoke eviction hearing set for November 15.
Lender Owemanco filed a pre-foreclosure action in 2020, 850100/2020 and the auction is set for November 1, 2023, with the total judgment $11,993,345, as of September 2023, according the case documents.

The property

The mixed-use building in Chinatown has 11,475 square feet of built space and 486 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 11,950 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 50 feet and is 69 feet deep with a total lot size of 3,474 square feet. The lot is irregular. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $4.1 million.

Prior sales and revenue

The 11,475-square-foot property generated revenue of $740,423 or $65 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

Development

Over the past five years, there has been no NYC Department of Buildings new building, demolition, or alteration permit application valued at more than $20,000 filed for this parcel.

For the tax lot building, it received its initial major alteration certificate of occupancy on February 4, 2019.

Violations and lawsuits

According to city public data, the property has received $2,500 in ECB penalties and $3,250 in OATH penalties in the last year.

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months.

The neighborhood

In Chinatown, The bulk, or 36 percent of the 8.4 million square feet of commercial built space are walkup buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 17 percent of the space. In sales, Chinatown has near average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $178.2 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 39th highest in Manhattan. For development, Chinatown has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 30th highest in Manhattan. It had 526,499 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 6 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of five of the 48 commercial properties representing 61,614 square feet of the 434,757 square feet. The largest owner is David Cheng, followed by Lin’s Temple Corporation and then Raber Enterprises. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 44 East Broadway, PincusCo identified five commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those five items, one was in new building development. It was a new building permit application filed on January 26, 2022 for a 17,750-square-foot industrial (F-2) building at 15 Catherine Street. Of those five items, one was for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. It was a permit application filed on June 1, 2022 for the $749,000 renovation of 2,800-square-foot mercantile (M) building with zero residential units at 20 Henry Street. One of those five items was a sale which Lin’s Temple Corporation bought the 7,929-square-foot, 10-unit rental (C7) on 54 East Broadway and one other property for $7.5 million from Tommy Yuen on September 23, 2022. Of those five items, two were loans above $5 million totaling $128.5 million. The most recent of the two was Delshah Capital in which borrowed $70 million from Signature Bank secured by the 8,150-square-foot, 21-unit rental (C7) on 41 Henry Street and 27 other properties on November 1, 2022.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page and link to DOB NOW portal.