Albert Malekan acquires NoHo office building fee from estate of Michael Baum, valued at $29.4M

Albert Malekan through the entity Akjo-26 LLC acquired the fee interest of the NoHo office building (O6) at 419 Lafayette Street from the estate of the late investor Michael Baum valued at $29.4 million. This is an entity level purchase, not a deed transfer. Malekan already controlled the property as the ground lease tenant.
The deal closed on December 20, 2022 and was recorded on January 3, 2023. The property has 57,729 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $508 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 signatory for the estate of Michael Baum was Susan Bunning. The signatory for Albert Malekan was Albert Malekan. Michael Baum died at his Kentucky horse breeding farm on August 31, 2021, at the age of 88. The native New Yorker moved to Lexington, Kentucky in 2001. According to the article at the time, Susan Bunning started out as Baum’s equine loan officer and became a longtime friend.

Michael Baum first acquired a stake in the building in 1980. As landlord he signed a 49-year ground lease with ground tenant Albert Malekan in 2013.

The major multifamily owner and developer Icon Realty Management is headquartered in this building.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Albert Malekan had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Michael Baum estate had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The 57,729-square-foot property generated revenue of $3.3 million or $58 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 419 Lafayette Street parcel has frontage of 52 feet and is 150 feet deep with a total lot size of 8,062 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-5B which allows for up to 5 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing The property is in the NoHo Historic District. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $16.9 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 received $5,050 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 $5 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In NoHo, the majority, or 53 percent of the 3.8 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 14 percent of the space. In sales, NoHo has had very little sales volume relative to other neighborhoods with $190.2 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, NoHo has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 284,357 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 8 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of five of the 25 commercial properties representing 359,748 square feet of the 1,035,518 square feet. The largest owner is Pan Am Equities, followed by New York University and then Himmel + Meringoff Properties.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 42 percent of the 900,243 square feet of built space are office buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 34 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Albert Malekan owned at least four commercial properties in New York City. The portfolio has at least $82.5 million in debt, with top three lenders as SKW Funding, Citibank, and OceanFirst Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, all identified are office properties. They are all located in Manhattan.

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