Abraham Mandel pays $4.5M for development site in Williamsburg

Abraham Mandel through the entity Hooper Fee LLC paid $4.5 million to Esther Banda and Martin Ehrenreich through the entity 245 Equities LLC for the 40-foot-wide vacant development site at 245 Hooper Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The expected use is ground up development.

On these lots, there is one active new building construction project, B01176220, for a three-unit, 5,936 square-foot residential (R-2) building. The project was submitted by Abraham Mandel with plans filed February 13, 2025 and it has not been permitted yet.
The deal closed on March 31, 2025 and was recorded on April 30, 2025. The two adjacent tax lots have zero square feet of built space and 8,760 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 8,760 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per buildable square foot is $513 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 signatories for Esther Banda and Martin Ehrenreich were Esther Banda and Martin Ehrenreich. The contract date was May 6, 2024.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Abraham Mandel had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Esther Banda had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The parcel has frontage of 20 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,000 square feet. The zoning is R6 which allows for up to 2.43 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $370,000.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the properties for the past 24 months. In addition, according to city public data, the properties have not received any significant violations in the last year.

The neighborhood

In Williamsburg, The bulk, or 39 percent of the 50.4 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 25 percent of the space. In sales, Williamsburg has the 4th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $2 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Williamsburg has 2.7 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 2nd highest in Brooklyn. It had 3.2 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 6 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On the tax block of 245 Hooper Street, PincusCo has identified the owners of two of the 15 commercial properties representing 13,000 square feet of the 73,747 square feet. The two identified owners are Gittie Klein and Mordachai Goldhirsch.
On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 5,936 square feet. It is a three-unit, 5,936 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Abraham Mandel with plans filed February 13, 2025 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 58 percent of the 73,747 square feet of built space are mixed-use buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 26 percent of the space.

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