Brand family pays $6.8M to Urban Century Group for 20-unit walkup in Upper West Side

159 West 85th Street (Credit - Google)
The Brand family’s Tor 159, LLC paid $6.8 million to Urban Century Group’s IUC 159 West 85th Street LLC for the 20-unit residential walkup building (C5) at 159 West 85th Street in Upper West Side, Manhattan.
The deal closed on August 23, 2022 and was recorded on September 19, 2022. The property has 11,880 square feet of built space and 1,973 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 13,848 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $568 and the price per buildable square foot is $487 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 seller bought the property on October 1, 2013, for $6.8 million.
Brand Family Realty owns at least seven rental buildings on the Upper West Side with a total of 80 units.
Prior sales and revenue
The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Steven Kassin, head officer and Victor Torres, site manager. The business entities are Infinity Real Estate and Iuc 159 West 85th Street Llc. The 11,880-square-foot property generated revenue of $408,262 or $34 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.
The property
The 159 West 85th Street parcel has frontage of 35 feet and is 102 feet deep with a total lot size of 3,462 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is R8B which allows for up to 4 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The property is in the Upper West Side / Central Park West Historic District. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $2.9 million.
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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 20 housing violations and $300 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 block
On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 19 of the 41 commercial properties representing 609,541 square feet of the 698,533 square feet. The largest owner is Richard Eisenberg, followed by Rudin Management and then Morris Schreiber.
there are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.
the majority, or 79 percent of the 687,804 square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 18 percent of the space.
Surrounding
Within a 400-foot radius of 159 West 85th 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 $26.6 million. The most recent of the two was Harry Schessel which borrowed $10 million from First Republic Bank secured by the 76,302-square-foot, 37-unit rental (D3) on 156 West 86th Street on November 29, 2021.
Direct link to Acris document. link