Alma Realty signs $31.2M refi for 3 elevator rentals in Washington Heights

Alma Realty through the entity GVS Properties II, LLC, as borrower signed a refi loan with lender JPMorgan Chase valued at $31.2 million for three residential elevator properties including the 64-unit residential elevator building at 3885 Broadway in Washington Heights, Manhattan, midblock 77-unit residential elevator building at 4455 Broadway in Washington Heights, Manhattan, and 44-unit residential elevator building at 3915 Broadway in Washington Heights, Manhattan.
The deal closed on February 23, 2022 and was recorded on March 23, 2022. The prior lender was New York Community Bank which held debt that had an original loan amount of $32 million.The three properties have 193,678 square feet of built space and 34,775 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 216,909 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $161 and the price per buildable square foot is $143 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 Alma Realty was John Mavroudis. The signatory for JPMorgan Chase was Ursula Flores.

Because multiple properties have been transacted, some of the following sections will follow the property with the largest assessed value, which in this case, is the property on 3885 Broadway.

Prior sales and revenue

The owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Efstathios Valiotis, head officer and Socrates Foradoulas, site manager. The business entities are Alma Realty Corp and Gvs Properties Ii, Llc. The three properties with a total of 193,678 square feet of built space generated revenue of $4.5 million per year or $23 per square foot.

The property

The 3885 Broadway parcel has frontage of 157 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 14,970 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is R8 which allows for up to 6.02 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $8.4 million.

Violations and lawsuits

The properties were not involved in any lawsuits or bankruptcies in the past years. In addition, according to city public data, the properties have received 12 DOB violations, $8,125 in ECB penalties, 135 housing violations, $11,250 in OATH penalties, and one housing litigation 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 Washington Heights, the bulk, or 49 percent of the 78 million square feet of commercial built space are residential elevator buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 23 percent of the space. In sales, Washington Heights has 1.3 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $366.7 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 24th highest in Manhattan. For development, Washington Heights has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 19th highest in Manhattan. It had 1 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 1 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On the tax block of 3885 Broadway, PincusCo has identified the owners of 15 of the 31 commercial properties representing 956,628 square feet of the 1,858,036 square feet. The largest owner is SDG Management, followed by David Edelstein and then Alma Realty. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

the majority, or 75 percent of the 1.9 million square feet of built space are residential elevator buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 20 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Alma Realty owned at least 49 commercial properties with 2,895,585 square feet and a city-determined market value of $301.4 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $451.5 million in debt, with top three lenders as New York Community Bank, Efstathios Valiotis, and Deutsche Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 75 percent of the 2,895,585 square feet of built space are residential elevator properties, with residential walkup properties next occupying 14 percent of the space. The bulk, or 47 percent of the built space, is in Queens, with Brooklyn next at 29 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 3885 Broadway, Pincusco identified eight commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those eight items, eight were loans above $5 million totaling $90.6 million. The most recent of the eight was Sutton Management which borrowed $17.1 million from Customers Bank secured by the 53,832-square-foot, 62-unit rental (D1) on 605 West 161st Street on January 25, 2022.

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