$13.25M pre-foreclosure filed against Thor Equities in SoHo

The trustee of a securitized loan with an original principal of $13.25 million secured by 440 Broadway in SoHo, Manhattan, filed a pre-foreclosure action against an affiliate of Joseph Sitt’s Thor Equities, which owns the retail building. The loan is allegedly in default since the loan matured in January 2023 and was not paid off, according to the complaint.

Court filings represent the positions of one party and are not necessarily accurate or complete. Thor Equities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The retail building in SoHo has 5,771 square feet of built space and 9,176 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 14,945 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 30 feet and is 98 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,989 square feet. The property is in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $7.8 million.

Thor Equities has been hit with a number of pre-foreclosure actions or turned over retail properties over the past year as Covid and other economic changes put pressure on in-person store sales. But in a positive transaction, Thor recently sold 155 Mercer Street for $60 million to James Dyson, the owner of the vacuum and dryer company Dyson Inc.

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Thor Equities owned at least 23 commercial properties with 654,700 square feet, 269 residential units. The portfolio has $248.8 million in debt, with top three lenders as MetLife, Athene Holding, and AB CarVal Investors respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 42 percent of the 654,700 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with industrial properties next occupying 23 percent of the space. The bulk, or 75 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 25 percent of the space.

Thor Equities bought 440 Broadway in January 2008 for $12 million, and in December 2012 refinanced the debt with $13.25 million which was packaged into a CMBS loan, Morgan Stanley Bank of America Merrill Lynch Trust 2013-C7. The trustee for the securitized loan, U.S. Bank, filed the pre-foreclosure action.

The trustee’s counsel sent a letter to Thor in February 2023 outlining the default, alleging a maturity default and noting that long-time tenant Foot Locker did not renew its lease.

Court FILE

Within a 400-foot radius of 440 Broadway, PincusCo identified 16 commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those 16 items, three were sales above $5 million totaling $44 million. The most recent of the three was Harkham Ventures which bought the 7,950-square-foot, seven-unit mixed-use building (S9) on 133 Grand Street for $11 million from Corigin Real Estate Group and Corigin on May 24, 2022. Of those 16 items, 13 were loans above $5 million totaling $514.4 million. The most recent of the 13 was Sapir Organization in which borrowed $90.1 million from Tel Aviv Stock Exchange bondholders secured by the 121,165-square-foot hotel (H1) on 9 Crosby Street on August 18, 2022.

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