Aurora Capital, David Ellis sign $35M initial loan with Israel Discount Bank for mixed-use in West Village

Aurora Capital Associates and David Ellis through the entity 675 Hudson Street Owner LLC as borrower signed a initial loan with lender Israel Discount Bank valued at $35 million for the five-unit mixed-use building (K4) at 675 Hudson Street in West Village, Manhattan.
The deal closed on January 13, 2023 and was recorded on January 24, 2023. The property has 29,300 square feet of built space for a total buildable of 29,300 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $1,194 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 December 5, 2016, for $658,387. The signatory for Aurora Capital Associates and David Ellis was Robert Cayre. The Real Deal reported Cayre was partnering with David Ellis to renovate the property.

The property

The 675 Hudson Street parcel has frontage of 167 feet and is 70 feet deep with a total lot size of 5,860 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-5 which allows for up to 5 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing The property is in the Gansevoort Market Historic District. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $11.4 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property since September of 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received $4,035 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 $5 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In West Village, the bulk, or 32 percent of the 10.3 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 27 percent of the space. In sales, West Village has 3.9 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $1.3 billion in sales volume in the last two years and is the 10th highest in Manhattan. For development, West Village has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 418,001 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 4 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There were two pre-foreclosure suit filed among other mixed-use buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of seven of the 22 commercial properties representing 93,112 square feet of the 318,882 square feet. The largest owner is S.W. Management, followed by RWN Management and then Icon Realty Management.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 37 percent of the 293,436 square feet of built space are walkup buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 22 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Aurora Capital Associates owned at least 14 commercial properties in New York City with 922,202 square feet and a city-determined market value of $247 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $313.8 million in debt, with top three lenders as Deutsche Pfandbriefbank, New York Community Bank, and Wells Fargo respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 33 percent of the 922,202 square feet of built space are retail properties, with specialty properties next occupying 24 percent of the space. The bulk, or 61 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 37 percent of the space.

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