Alma Realty signs $24M refi with Deutsche Bank for 80-unit rental in Long Island City
37-21 31st Street (Credit - Cyclomedia)
Alma Realty through the entity Alma Tower LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender Deutsche Bank through the entity Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas valued at $24 million for the 80-unit residential elevator building (D6) at 37-21 31st Street in Long Island City, Queens.
The deal closed on October 31, 2025 and was recorded on November 12, 2025. The prior lender was M&T Bank which held debt that had an original loan amount of $25 million.The property has 123,820 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $193 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 August 10, 2005, for $12 million. The signatory for Alma Realty was Efstathios Valiotis . The signatory for Deutsche Bank was David Addison and Anthony Pontoriero.
Prior sales and revenue
The owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Efstathios Valiotis, head officer and Nicholas Conway, agent. The business entities are Alma Realty Corp and Alma Tower, Llc. The 123,820-square-foot property generated revenue of $2.6 million or $21 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.
The property
The residential elevator building with 80 residential units in Long Island City has 123,820 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 108 feet and is 180 feet deep with a total lot size of 19,672 square feet. The zoning is M1-2/R6A which allows for up to 2 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing and up to 3 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The property has a 421A exemption that started in 2015 and expires in 2030. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $13.7 million. The property has 80 rent regulated units according to city tax records from 2023.
Violations and lawsuits
The property was involved in one lawsuit and zero bankruptcies over the past two years. The suit was a $25 million commercial foreclosure concerning a loan filed on May 1, 2025, by M&T Bank against Alma Realty and Efstathios Valiotis. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received one housing violation in the last year.
Development
For the tax lot building, it received its initial certificate of occupancy on August 8, 2014. There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $1 million on this tax lot.
The block
On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of three of the six commercial properties representing 310,563 square feet of the 341,486 square feet. The two identified owners are Alma Realty and Jian Fei Chen.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.
The majority, or 69 percent of the 341,486 square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with office buildings next occupying 28 percent of the space.
The borrower
The PincusCo database currently indicates that Alma Realty owned at least 137 commercial properties with 6,255 residential units in New York City with 7,005,071 square feet and a city-determined market value of $696.8 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $682.1 million in debt, with top three lenders as Deutsche Bank, New York Community Bank, and Efstathios Valiotis respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 68 percent of the 7,005,071 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with walkup properties next occupying 20 percent of the space. The bulk, or 36 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Queens next at 32 percent of the space.
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