Aron Karpen signs $7.5M refi with Greystone & Co. for 32-unit walkup in Bed Stuy

Aron Karpen through the entity Ko70 LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender Greystone & Co. through the entity Greystone Servicing Company, LLC valued at $7.5 million for the 32-unit residential walkup building at 70 Kosciuszko Street in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on February 8, 2022 and was recorded on February 22, 2022. The prior lender was Amalgamated Bank which held debt that had an original loan amount of $5.6 million.
The property has 21,990 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $341 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 Aron Karpen was Aron Karpen. The signatory for Greystone & Co. was Ann Sutton.
The 21,990-square-foot property generated revenue of $506,484 or $23 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

One of the DOB projects filed were to change the building from a D-1 to a R-2and change the number of residential units from 0 to 32 and were permitted on January 25, 2010.
In Bed Stuy, the bulk, or 38 percent of the 92.5 million square feet of built space are 1-4 family buildings, with residential elevator buildings next occupying 20 percent of the space. In sales, Bed Stuy has 1.5 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $417.3 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 6th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Bed Stuy is the 8th most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 4.3 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 5 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There were nine pre-foreclosure suit filed among other residential walkup buildings in the past 12 months.
On the tax block, the majority, or 40 percent of the 277,737 square feet of built space are 1-4 family buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 19 percent of the space.
The owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Aron Karpen, head officer and Yehuda Friedman, agent. The business entities are Linen Lofts and Ko70 Llc.
Within a 400-foot radius of 70 Kosciuszko Street, PincusCo identified six commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those six items, one was in new building development. It was a new building permit application filed on February 15, 2022 for a 331,636-square-foot R-2 building with 226 residential units at 270 Nostrand Avenue.
Of those six items, one was for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. It was a permit application filed on July 29, 2021 for the $300,000 renovation of 2,000-square-foot R-2 building with two residential units at 562 Lafayette Avenue.
One of those six items was a sale which Joseph Choi bought the 6,926-square-foot, 10-unit rental (C1) on 568 Lafayette Avenue for $6 million from Chaim Wurzberger on April 1, 2020.
Of those six items, three were loans above $5 million totaling $108.1 million. The most recent of the three was Marvin Rubin which borrowed $25 million from Welltower, Inc. secured by the 0-square-foot development site (V0) on 600 Dekalb Avenue on March 12, 2021.

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