Abraham Grunhut, Abraham Lipschitz pay $13M to Bridge Investment for retail in Greenwich Village

Abraham Grunhut and Abraham Lipschitz through the entity Varick Corner LLC paid $13 million to Bridge Investment Group through the entity Bds II Ny Downing Court LLC for retail condo at 63 Downing Street in Greenwich Village, Manhattan.
The deal closed on July 28, 2022 and was recorded on August 19, 2022. The property has 11,398 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,140 per the PincusCo analysis. (The price per square foot analysis is the transaction price divided by square feet as reported in public records and assumes no air rights have been sold.)
The seller took title to the property on June 17, 2021, with a value of $18.1 million in a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. The signatory for Bridge Investment Group was Jeehae Lee. The signatory for Abraham Grunhut and Abraham Lipschitz was Abraham Grunhut. The seller, Bridge Investment Group, took the property back in a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure in June 2021. The prior owner, Shimshon Klugman, bought the unit for $11.35 million in 2015, then by June 2017 had increased the debt to $17.5 million through a loan from Bridge Investment.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer Abraham Grunhut purchased one property in one transaction for a total of $36.3 million and sold one property in one transaction for a total of $2.1 million over the past 24 months.

The property

The 63 Downing Street parcel has a total lot size of 11,398 square feet. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $3.8 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property since September of 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the property has not received any significant violations in the last year.

Development

There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $5 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Greenwich Village, the bulk, or 24 percent of the 22.4 million square feet of commercial built space are specialty buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 17 percent of the space. In sales, Greenwich Village has the 10th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.5 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Greenwich Village has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 659,809 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 3 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 14 of the 27 commercial properties representing 126,775 square feet of the 250,827 square feet. The largest owner is William Gottlieb Real Estate, followed by Robert Cohen and then Sabet Group.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 49 percent of the 235,760 square feet of built space are walkup buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 27 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Bridge Investment Group owned at least one commercial property in New York City with 11,398 square feet and a city-determined market value of $3.8 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio consists of at least a single retail property. It is located in Manhattan.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Abraham Grunhut owned at least 46 commercial properties in New York City with 351,709 square feet and a city-determined market value of $59.1 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $90.4 million in debt, with top three lenders as Signature Bank, KeyBank, and Goldman Sachs respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 66 percent of the 351,709 square feet of built space are walkup properties, with elevator properties next occupying 16 percent of the space. The bulk, or 89 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Bronx next at 10 percent of the space.

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