Barone Management pays $22M for two dev parcels in Elmhurst, gets $40M loan

Barone Management through the entity Sunshine Elmhurst LLC paid $22 million to Catherine Phyllis Cronin through the entity 45-20 83rd LLC for the industrial building (E1) at 80-52 47th Avenue in Elmhurst, Queens and industrial building (E1) at 45-20 83rd Street in Elmhurst, Queens.

At the same time, Barone Management obtained a $40 million loan from Metropolitan Commercial Bank for the development projects.
The deal closed on August 30, 2022 and was recorded on September 9, 2022. The two properties have 41,320 square feet of built space and 4,623 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 44,437 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $532 and the price per buildable square foot is $495 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 Catherine Phyllis Cronin was Catherine Phyllis Cronin. The signatory for Barone Management was John Silviano.
This is for the conversion of an industrial building into the Renaissance Charter School, and the development of an adjacent site into a nine-story residential building.

Because multiple properties have been transacted, some of the following sections will follow the property with the largest assessed value, which in this case, is the property on 80-52 47th Avenue.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has records that the buyer Barone Management purchased or groundleased seven properties in seven transactions for a total of $46.3 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Catherine Phyllis Cronin had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. Out of the two properties, one with a total of 41,320 square feet of built space generated revenue of $557,107 per year.

The property

The 80-52 47th Avenue parcel has frontage of 115 feet and is 338 feet deep with a total lot size of 24,334 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-1 which allows for up to 1 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $4.7 million.The most recent loan totaled $21.5 million and was provided by Metropolitan Commercial Bank on November 20, 2020.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the properties since September of 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the properties have not received any significant violations in the last year.

The neighborhood

In Elmhurst, the bulk, or 40 percent of the 20.3 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 21 percent of the space. In sales, Elmhurst has had very little sales volume relative to other neighborhoods with $153.5 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Elmhurst has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 737,341 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 industrial buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On the tax block of 80-52 47th Avenue, PincusCo has identified the owners of six of the 19 commercial properties representing 135,936 square feet of the 258,307 square feet. The largest owner is Novelty Crystal Corp., followed by James Kwang Lee and then Barone Management.

The majority, or 54 percent of the 258,307 square feet of built space are retail buildings, with industrial buildings next occupying 19 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Barone Management owned at least 11 commercial properties in New York City with 515,303 square feet and a city-determined market value of $45.5 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $61.1 million in debt, with top three lenders as Metropolitan Commercial Bank, Berkshire Group, and Fieldpoint Private Bank & Trust respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 52 percent of the 515,303 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with office properties next occupying 20 percent of the space. The bulk, or 52 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Queens next at 26 percent of the space.

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