Cannabis retailer CBD Kratom pays $2.2M for retail location in Astoria

St. Louis-based cannabis retailer CBD Kratom through the entity Mid County Stl LLC paid $2.2 million to Alex Lau through the entity 16bay25 LLC for the mixed-use retail building (K2) at 30-16 Steinway Street in Astoria, Queens.
CBD Kratom purchased the building where it plans to open a store soon, according to its website, which lists eight current locations in New York City and four more (including this one) to open soon.
The deal closed on December 9, 2022 and was recorded on December 21, 2022. The property has 3,625 square feet of built space and 3,175 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 6,804 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $600 and the price per buildable square foot is $319 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 November 16, 2015, for $2.5 million. The signatory for Alex Lau was Alex Lau. The signatory for CBD Kratom was David Palatnik.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has no record that the buyer CBD Kratom had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Alex Lau had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The 3,625-square-foot property generated revenue of $99,671 or $27 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 30-16 Steinway Street parcel has frontage of 25 feet and is 90 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,268 square feet. The zoning is C4-2A which allows for up to 3 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 3 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $575,000.

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 $1,825 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 neighborhood

In Astoria, the bulk, or 36 percent of the 40.1 million square feet of commercial built space are walkup buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 31 percent of the space. In sales, Astoria has 3.1 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $1.1 billion in sales volume in the last two years and is the 2nd highest in Queens. For development, Astoria has 3.3 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 3rd highest in Queens. It had 3.4 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 9 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of three of the 57 commercial properties representing 14,614 square feet of the 244,822 square feet. The largest owner is Simkho Aranbayev, followed by George Arnitsis and then David Weinman.
On the tax block, there were two new building construction projects totaling 13,840 square feet. The largest is a eight-unit, 7,144-square-foot R-2 building developed by Robert Last with plans filed September 12, 2014 and permitted April 6, 2017. The second largest is a five-unit, 6,696-square-foot R-2 building developed by John Budis with plans filed November 22, 2019 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 51 percent of the 228,968 square feet of built space are mixed-use buildings, with retail buildings next occupying 22 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Alex Lau owned at least five commercial properties in New York City with 79,640 square feet and a city-determined market value of $4.7 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $6 million in debt, borrowed from Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 44 percent of the 79,640 square feet of built space are retail properties, with G7 properties next occupying 28 percent of the space. The bulk, or 77 percent of the built space, is in Queens, with Brooklyn next at 23 percent of the space.

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