$60M note in foreclosure sold, secured by APF Properties Midtown West office

The entity 57 Street Lender LLC registered at the law firm Sills Cummis & Gross bought a note with an original principal of $60 million from Wells Fargo secured by APF Properties’s office building (O6) at 24 West 57th Street in Midtown West, Manhattan. Wells Fargo filed a pre-foreclosure action, 850014/2024 in January that remains ongoing against APF Properties. The new note holder will likely step into the position of Wells Fargo, but the substitution has not yet been filed with the court.
Case 850014/2024 LINK
The deal closed on October 16, 2024 and was recorded on October 21, 2024. The property has 88,722 square feet of built space and 11,647 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 100,410 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data.
The signatory for APF Properties was Berndt Perl. The original lender Wells Fargo filed a pre-foreclosure in January 2024. Berndt Perl, in an answer to the complaint, broadly denied the allegations of default and seeks a dismissal of the complaint.

The property

The office building in Midtown West has 88,722 square feet of built space and 11,647 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 100,410 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 50 feet and is 200 feet deep with a total lot size of 10,041 square feet. The zoning is C5-3 which allows for up to 15 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 10 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $38.3 million. The most recent loan totaled $60 million and was provided by Wells Fargo on September 27, 2019.

Violations and lawsuits

The property was involved in one lawsuit and zero bankruptcies over the past two years. The suit was a $60 million commercial foreclosure concerning a loan filed on January 19, 2024, by Wells Fargo against APF Properties. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received one DOB violation, $4,800 in ECB penalties, and $9,210 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $1 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Midtown West, The majority, or 75 percent of the 75.9 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 14 percent of the space. In sales, Midtown West has the 2nd highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $2.8 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Midtown West is the most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 27.2 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 36 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There were two pre-foreclosure suit filed among other office buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 10 of the 23 commercial properties representing 1,113,506 square feet of the 1,557,159 square feet. The largest owner is LeFrak, followed by Prada and then APF Properties.
On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 383,134 square feet. It is a 80-unit, 383,134 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Solow Realty & Development and filed by Anthony Calicchio with plans filed April 17, 2018 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 69 percent of the 1.6 million square feet of built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 19 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Apf Properties owned at least five commercial properties in New York City with 781,660 square feet and a city-determined market value of $293.9 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, all identified are office properties. They are all located in Manhattan.

Direct link to Acris document. link