Abraham Mendel signs $15.8M refi loan with OptimumBank for hotel in Bedford Stuyvesant

Abraham Mendel through the entity Atlantic Avenue Properties I LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender OptimumBank valued at $15.8 million for the hotel building (H3) at 1225-1235 Atlantic Avenue in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on November 27, 2023 and was recorded on December 22, 2023. The prior lender was Bank of America which held debt that had an original loan amount of $15.6 million.
The property has 41,485 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $379 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 owner bought the property on May 7, 2012, for $1.6 million. The signatory for Abraham Mendel was Abraham Mendel. The signatory for OptimumBank was Cory Mayer.

The property

The hotel building in Bedford Stuyvesant has 41,485 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 85 feet and is 99 feet deep with a total lot size of 6,443 square feet. The zoning is C4-5D which allows for up to 4.2 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 4.2 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $10.1 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received three housing violations and $50 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

For the tax lot building, it received its initial certificate of occupancy on June 30, 2017. 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 Bedford Stuyvesant, The bulk, or 35 percent of the 54.7 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 29 percent of the space. In sales, Bedford Stuyvesant has 3.5 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $1.2 billion in sales volume in the last two years and is the 3rd highest in Brooklyn. For development, Bedford Stuyvesant has 2.8 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 4th highest in Brooklyn. It had 2.8 million 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 block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of five of the 15 commercial properties representing 35,434 square feet of the 147,707 square feet. The largest owner is Ram P. Chadha, followed by Michael Friedman and then Lazar Waldman.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 42 percent of the 147,707 square feet of built space are hotel buildings, with industrial buildings next occupying 24 percent of the space.

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