United Construction & Development files to demo 76K LIC building

Chris Jiashu Xu of United Construction & Development Group filed plans to demolish the five-story, 76,000-square-foot commercial building at 42-61 24th Street in Long Island City, Queens. No new building plans have been filed with the Department of Buildings, according to a PincusCo search.

The 42-51 24 Street parcel has frontage of 150 feet and is 140 feet deep with a total lot size of 18,200 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-5/R9 which allows for up to 5 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing and up to 7.52 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $4.5 million. The most recent loan totaled $23 million and was provided by Bank of China on January 26, 2022.

The industrial building in Long Island City has 76,000 square feet of built space and 60,788 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 136,864 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The property is owned by United Construction & Development Group, which bought the parcel January 26, 2022, for $40.1 million.

The 76,000-square-foot property generated revenue of $790,529 or $10 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of three of the 11 commercial properties representing 91,537 square feet of the 115,210 square feet. The two identified owners are United Construction & Development Group and Andy Ho. there are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

Over the past five years, there have been four NYC Department of Buildings permit applications filed for this parcel valued at more than $20,000. There were four renovation/alteration projects (A2) applied for with a total estimated value of $134,001.

The PincusCo database currently indicates that United Construction & Development Group owned at least 12 commercial properties in New York City with 850,016 square feet and a city-determined market value of $124 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $425.9 million in debt, with top three lenders as Bank of China, Centennial Bank, and Bank Leumi respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 49 percent of the 850,016 square feet of built space are office properties, with elevator properties next occupying 36 percent of the space. They are all located in Queens.

Within a 400-foot radius of 42-51 24 Street, Pincusco identified seven commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those seven items, one was in new building development. It was a new building permit application filed on February 25, 2021 for a 82,941-square-foot R-1 building with 121 residential units at 25-10 42nd Road. Of those seven items, one was for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. It was a permit issued on December 15, 2020 for the $5.6 million renovation of 151,180-square-foot B building with N/A residential units at 43-10 23rd Street. One of those seven items was a sale which Carmel Partners bought the 0-square-foot, one-unit office building (O2) on 43-16 24th Street and one other property for $176 million from Stawski Partners on March 24, 2022. Of those seven items, four were loans above $5 million totaling $516.8 million. The most recent of the four was Carmel Partners which borrowed $500 million from Wells Fargo secured by the 0-square-foot, one-unit office building (O2) on 43-16 24th Street and one other property on September 14, 2022.

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