$80M bankruptcy filed for 105 unsold units at College Point condo

A Corona-based real estate developer filed a petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Brooklyn yesterday seeking chapter 11 protection for the 105 unsold residential units in a 134-unit residential development called the Allura Waterfront condominium at 109-09 15th Avenue in College Point, Queens.
Developer Choy Ling Lam filed the petition on behalf of himself and Ching Lam on January 6, 2025.
This is the second bankruptcy petition Lam has filed in the past five months. In August 2024 Lam filed a chapter 11 petition related to 346 Roebling Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which secures a $5.8 million loan.
Allura case LINK
Allura chapter 11 pdf

Choy Ling Lam developed the new construction 134-unit Allura Waterfront condominium project, CD180376, then in February 2020 borrowed $57.5 million from Benefit Street Partners. Benefit Street Partners in June 2020 assigned the debt to the current holder, TRT Lending, an affiliate of Ares Management.

The total sellout for the project is $146.2 million. Lam estimates the 105 unsold units are worth $80 million, and he has $67 million in secured debt owed to TRT Lending (in care of Ares Management at 518 17th Street 17th Floor, Denver, attention Michael Blum and Elaine McKay), and owes $2.5 million in property tax on those unsold units and in addition is liable for a $1 million lawsuit.

On the tax lot, the most recent condominium plan was filed by Waterfront Resort Holdings LLC to create 134 residential units and 1 commercial units in a building at 109-09 15th Avenue in College Point, Queens, called Allura Waterfront Condominium that has a $146.2 million sellout, according to an October 1, 2018 submission to the New York State Attorney General. The principal of the sponsor, Waterfront Resort Holdings LLC, was Choy Ling Lam.

The neighborhood

In College Point, The bulk, or 48 percent of the 10.8 million square feet of commercial built space are industrial buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 21 percent of the space. In sales, College Point has near average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $214.1 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 9th highest in Queens. For development, College Point has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 12th highest in Queens. It had 532,193 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 5 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 109-09 15th Avenue, PincusCo identified three commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those three items, two were sales above $5 million totaling $19.6 million. The most recent of the two was Xinos Construction which bought the 3,000-square-foot, one-unit industrial (E9) on 109-10 15th Avenue and seven other properties for $5.6 million from Kaplon-Belo Affiliates on May 3, 2024. One of those three items was a loan which Hengjiang Mu borrowed $9.8 million from Golden Bank secured by 45 condo units in the 12,225-square-foot, 47-unit mixed-use building (RM) on 14-34 110th Street on November 9, 2023.

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