Bethpage Federal files $33M pre-foreclosure on office condo

Bethpage Federal Credit Union filed a $33.06 million pre-foreclosure at the 42,416-square-foot office condominium unit at 135 West 52nd Street in Midtown West, Manhattan, owned by Ariel Lahmi’s investment firm Beekman Riem. The bank filed the complaint yesterday in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

Case LINK

Court filings represent the position of one party and are not necessarily accurate or complete.

Beekman Riem purchased the condo unit in March 2018 for $46.05 million, and financed it with a $37 million loan at the time from Bethpage Federal Credit Union.

The office condominium is spread over floors two through six, according to information on page 40 of this condo declaration.

The property

The condo building with 109 residential units in Midtown West has 292,546 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 125 feet and is 200 feet deep with a total lot size of 16,318 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is C6-6.5 which allows for up to 12 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial.

Violations and lawsuits

According to city public data, the property has received $5,625 in ECB penalties and $17,700 in OATH penalties in the last year.

The property was involved in at least two lawsuits over the past two years. One was a $1.4 million suit over a commission, and another was a $1,000,000 money judgment concerning a construction filed on July 1, 2022, by 135 West 52nd Street Condominium condo board against David Bistricer, Meyer Chetrit, Clipper Equity, and Chetrit Group.

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 $2.6 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Midtown West is the most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 27.9 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 37 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of two of the three commercial properties representing 2,654,229 square feet of the 2,654,229 square feet. The two identified owners are Island Capital Group and Paramount Group. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The owner

The owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Jesse Adelaar, head officer and Kira Yearwood, officer. The business entities are Douglas Elliman Property Management and 135 West 52 Street Condominium.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 135 West 52 Street, PincusCo identified two commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those two items, two were loans above $5 million totaling $991 million. The most recent of the two was MCR and Island Capital Group in which borrowed $260 million from Fortress Investment Group secured by the 1,172,021-square-foot, 13-unit hotel (H1) on 811 7th Avenue on December 4, 2023.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page.