Bankruptcy filed for 2 walkups with 37 units, $12M debt held by Aulder Capital

The owners of two adjacent walkup buildings in Carnegie Hill with a total of 37 residential units filed a bankruptcy petition in Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn for the properties which secure $12 million in debt held by Aulder Capital.

Apparel entrepreneur Ruben Azrak and Patricial Lampl bought the two adjacent buildings at 162-164 East 82nd Street in Carnegie Hill, Manhattan, in June 2017 for $19.7 million, and took out a $10.5 million senior loan and a $1.5 million mezzanine loan at the time from Dime Community Bank.

Both loans have been in default since 2020. Aulder Capital acquired the debt in June 2021 and announced it would hold a UCC auction with a scheduled date in November 2021, which has been adjourned several times as the parties negotiated extensions. Now, according to the petition, the lender will extend one more time and consents to a bankruptcy filing which will proceed to a sale if the borrower cannot lock in a refinance.

Azrak appointed bankruptcy expert David Goldwasser, of FIA Capital Partners, as manager of the equity entity, that filed the petition, and of the fee entity, that plans to file a petition shortly, according to the petition. The 37-unit building has a monthly rent roll of $81,189.

According to the petition, “The Property became subject to mortgage delinquencies during Covid, which were exacerbated by litigation and accounting issues involving the Managing Agent… A new Property Manager is being engaged…”

The petition said a broker has been selected to manage a sale, and a source identified the broker as Rosewood Realty Group’s  Greg Corbin.

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 10 of the 26 commercial properties representing 120,277 square feet of the 339,875 square feet. The largest owner is Nexus Building Development Group, followed by S.W. Management and then SMA Equities. On the tax block, there were two new building construction projects totaling 34,029 square feet. The largest is a nine-unit, 24,041-square-foot R-2 building developed by Yaniv Cohen with plans filed April 18, 2013 and permitted January 17, 2017. The second largest is a five-unit, 9,988-square-foot R-2 building developed by Jong Mok Che with plans filed July 12, 2018.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page and link to DOB NOW portal.