Anonymous buyer pays $5.5M for school building in Sheepshead Bay

The 2221 Ave R Holdings LLC with unknown ownership paid $5.5 million to Congregation Beth Bracha and Yackob for the school building (W2) at 2221 Avenue R in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on September 30, 2024 and was recorded on November 19, 2024. The property has 16,140 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $340 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 seller bought the property on March 6, 2018, for $3.8 million. The signatory for Congregation Beth Bracha and Yackob was Liora Thause. The signatory for 2221 Ave R Holdings LLC was Chana Farkas, with the address in care of attorney Jeffrey Zwick. The contract date was June 22, 2022.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Congregation Beth Bracha and Yackob had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The specialty building in Sheepshead Bay has 16,140 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 100 feet and is 145 feet deep with a total lot size of 14,500 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is R3-2 which allows for up to 0.5 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1.5 million. The most recent loan totaled 0.0 and was provided by Shlomo Tajerstein on February 28, 2023.

Violations and lawsuits

The property was involved in one court case and zero bankruptcies over the past two years. The court case was a $5.5 million judgment concerning a leave to sell filed on August 11, 2023, by Congregation Beth Bracha And Yackob with the anonymous buyer in care of Law Offices of Mark Schlanger registered. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received two DOB violations, $3,750 in ECB penalties, and $3,750 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 $1 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Sheepshead Bay, The bulk, or 43 percent of the 26.6 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 17 percent of the space. In sales, Sheepshead Bay has 1.6 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $402.7 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 15th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Sheepshead Bay has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 824,806 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 3 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of one of the three commercial properties representing 16,140 square feet of the 32,912 square feet. The identified owner is Congregation Beth Bracha And Yackob.
On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 399 square feet. It is a 399 square-foot utility and miscellaneous (U) building submitted by Bobby Ashkenazi with plans filed June 8, 2016 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 94 percent of the 32,912 square feet of built space are specialty buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 6 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Congregation Beth Bracha And Yackob owned at least one commercial property in New York City with 16,140 square feet and a city-determined market value of $1.5 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio consists of at least a single specialty property. It is located in Brooklyn.

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