Bill Lika pays $4.5M for residential walkup in Williamsburg

Bill Lika through the entity Arlind Org LLC paid $4.5 million to Lenore Pennolino through the entity 621/623 Union Ave LLC for midblock five-unit residential walkup building at 621 Union Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on April 14, 2022 and was recorded on April 28, 2022.The property has 4,125 square feet of built space and 3,519 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 7,650 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,091 and the price per buildable square foot is $588 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 Lenore Pennolino was Lenore Pennolino. The signatory for Bill Lika was Bill Lika.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has no record that the buyer Bill Lika had purchased any other properties and sold one properties in one transactions for a total of $4.6 million over the past 24 months.
The seller Lenore Pennolino had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The former owner according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development is Lenore Pennolino, head officer. The business entity is 621/623 Union Avenue Llc.

The property

The 621 Union Avenue parcel has frontage of 25 feet and is 102 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,550 square feet. The zoning is M1-2/R6A which allows for up to 2 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing and up to 3 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1.1 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 not received any significant violations 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 Williamsburg, the bulk, or 35 percent of the 65.1 million square feet of commercial built space are residential elevator buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 19 percent of the space. In sales, Williamsburg has the 9th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.4 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Williamsburg is the 6th most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 5.1 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 8 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There were eight pre-foreclosure suit filed among other residential walkup buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of three of the 10 commercial properties representing 17,504 square feet of the 65,447 square feet. The largest owner is Joel Schwartz, followed by John Kaczmarek and then Nando Niola. There is one active new building construction project totaling 35,915 square feet. It is a 53-unit, 35,915-square-foot R-2 building developed by Yisroel Greenfeld with plans filed September 24, 2020 and permitted March 2, 2022.

The majority, or 59 percent of the 90,475 square feet of built space are mixed-use buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 25 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 621 Union Avenue, PincusCo identified three commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those three items, one was in new building development. It was a new building permit issued on March 2, 2022 for a 35,915-square-foot R-2 building with 53 residential units at 209 North 11th Street.
One of those three items was a sale which Joel Schwartz bought the 10,000-square-foot, two-unit mixed-use building (K4) on 209 North 11th Street for $13.4 million from Mark Berezowsky on March 8, 2021.
One of those three items was a loan which Cheskel Wieder borrowed $34.2 million from Greystone & Co. secured by two condo units in the 11,811-square-foot, 55-unit mixed-use building (RM) on 475 Driggs Avenue on November 9, 2021.

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