Carlyle, Z+G pay $32.1M to Werber Real Estate for 51-unit rental in Gowanus

UPDATED 9:25 a.m., April 22, 2025: Carlyle Group and Z+G Property Group through the entity 202 8th Street Owner, L.L.C. paid $32.1 million to Werber Real Estate through the entity 202 Park Slope LLC for the 51-unit residential elevator building (D1) at 438 4th Avenue in Gowanus, Brooklyn. The expected use is cash flowing.
The deal closed on April 15, 2025 and was recorded on April 21, 2025. The property has 56,868 square feet of built space and 189 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 57,069 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $564 and the price per buildable square foot is $562 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 September 3, 2013, for $37.8 million. The signatory for Werber Real Estate was Benjamin Werber . The signatory for Carlyle Group and Z+G Property Group as Wonjoong Kim . The contract date was January 16, 2025.

The purchase was financed with a $21.3 million loan from Invesco.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer Carlyle Group purchased 107 properties in 103 transactions for a total of $1.5 billion and sold 32 properties in three transactions for a total of $114 million over the past 24 months.
The seller Werber Real Estate had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Benjamin Werber, head officer and Faton Muriqi, site manager. The business entities are Werber Management and 202 Park Slope Llc. The 56,868-square-foot property generated revenue of $2.4 million or $42 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The residential elevator building with 51 residential units in Gowanus has 56,868 square feet of built space and 189 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 57,069 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 75 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 9,480 square feet. The zoning is C4-4D which allows for up to 3.4 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 6.02 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The property has a 421A exemption that started in 2013 and expires in 2028. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $14.6 million. The most recent loan totaled $24.5 million and was provided by Signature Bank on December 27, 2019. The property has 51 rent regulated units according to city tax records from 2023.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received $600 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

For the tax lot building, it received its initial certificate of occupancy on April 11, 2013. There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $1 million on this tax lot.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of five of the 13 commercial properties representing 68,121 square feet of the 103,562 square feet. The largest owner is Werber Real Estate, followed by Moy Pang and then Idan Ariav.
On the tax block, there were two new building construction projects totaling 37,605 square feet. The largest is a 24,372 square-foot educational (E) building submitted by Elan Abneri with plans filed February 14, 2020 and permitted July 12, 2022. The second largest is a 13-unit, 13,233 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Praim Singh with plans filed October 13, 2015 and permitted May 3, 2021.

The majority, or 68 percent of the 103,562 square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 20 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Carlyle Group owned at least 325 commercial properties with 3,778 residential units in New York City with 4,063,561 square feet and a city-determined market value of $942.6 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $736.5 million in debt, with top three lenders as Invesco, Prudential Financial, and PGIM Real Estate respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 38 percent of the 4,063,561 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with industrial properties next occupying 29 percent of the space. The bulk, or 48 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Queens next at 31 percent of the space.

Correction: A prior version of this post incorrectly reported the unit count as 17. In fact, there are 51 residential units in the building. In addition, Z+G Property Group was added as a buyer. 

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