APF Properties sells office in Midtown West for $67.2M, buyer is Soloviev Group

UPDATED 9:05 a.m., January 26, 2025 with buyer info: A buyer entity registered with the law firm DLA Piper, 2457 Acquisition LLC, paid $67.2 million to APF Properties through the entity 24 West 57 APF LLC for the office building (O6) at 24 West 57th Street in Midtown West, Manhattan.

The Real Deal reported on January 24 that the buyer was Stefan Soloviev who leads the Soloviev Group.

The property had been under the threat of foreclosure, with the original lender Wells Fargo filing a pre-foreclosure action one year ago, that said $50 million of an original principal of $60 million was outstanding.

Gary Barnett’s Extell Development then purchased that defaulted debt in October 2024, but does not appear to be the buyer. Barnett signed a document stating that the note was paid off, meaning the new buyer satisfied the debt. The note sold above the par and accrued interest, making this a bona fide sale, not a short sale or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. Extell Development did not respond to a request for comment.
The deal closed on January 8, 2025 and was recorded on January 9, 2025. The property has 88,722 square feet of built space and 11,647 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 100,410 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $757 and the price per buildable square foot is $669 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 APF Properties was Kenneth S. Aschendorf. The signatory for the buyer was Mark Meland, a Florida real estate attorney. The contract date was December 10, 2024. In October, PincusCo reported on the note sale. The note sale was brokered by Eastdil Secured’s Will Silverman and Gary Phillips, Traded NY reported.

Prior foreclosure case 850014/2024 LINK

Prior sales and revenue

The seller APF Properties had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the past 24 months.

The property

The office building in Midtown West has 88,722 square feet of built space and 11,647 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 100,410 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 50 feet and is 200 feet deep with a total lot size of 10,041 square feet. The zoning is C5-3 which allows for up to 15 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 10 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $38.3 million.

Violations and lawsuits

The property was involved in one lawsuit and zero bankruptcies over the past two years. The suit was a $60 million commercial foreclosure concerning a loan filed on January 19, 2024, by Wells Fargo against APF Properties. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received one DOB violation and $4,820 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 Midtown West, The majority, or 75 percent of the 75.9 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 14 percent of the space. In sales, Midtown West has the 3rd highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $2.5 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Midtown West is the most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 28.7 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 38 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There were two pre-foreclosure suit filed among other office buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 10 of the 23 commercial properties representing 1,113,506 square feet of the 1,557,159 square feet. The largest owner is Lefrak, followed by Prada and then Apf Properties.
On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 383,134 square feet. It is a 80-unit, 383,134 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Solow Realty & Development and filed by Anthony Calicchio with plans filed April 17, 2018 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 69 percent of the 1.6 million square feet of built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 19 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Apf Properties owned at least five commercial properties in New York City with 781,660 square feet and a city-determined market value of $293.9 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, all identified are office properties. They are all located in Manhattan.

Direct link to Acris document. link