Carmel Partners pays $176M to Stawski Partners for LIC dev site
Carmel Partners through the entity Cp VIII LIC Owner, LLC paid $176 million to Stawski Partners through the entity Long Island City Center II LLC for the midblock office building at 43-16 24th Street in Long Island City, Queens and development building at 23-15 44th Road in Long Island City, Queens.
The deal closed on March 16, 2022 and was recorded on March 24, 2022. The two properties have 3,092 square feet of built space and 577,841 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 580,930 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price is $302 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 Stawski Partners was Axel (Abraham) Stawski. The signatory for Carmel Partners was Matthew Golden. Axel Stawski is the founder and owner of Stawski Partners. The Real Deal first reported on this sale, putting the price at $200 million.
Because multiple properties have been transacted, some of the following sections will follow the property with the largest assessed value, which in this case, is the property on 23-15 44th Road.
Prior sales and revenue
Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has records that the buyer Carmel Partners purchased four properties in one transactions for a total of $73.5 million and sold four properties in two transactions for a total of $243.2 million over the past 24 months.
The seller Stawski Partners had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.
The property
The 23-15 44th Road parcel has frontage of 192 feet and is 291 feet deep with a total lot size of 56,459 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-6/R10 which allows for up to 10 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing and up to 10 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $6.8 million.
Violations and lawsuits
The properties were not involved in any lawsuits or bankruptcies in the past years. In addition, according to city public data, the properties have received $6,250 in ECB penalties and $12,680 in OATH penalties in the last year.
Development
On these lots, there are two active new building construction projects and major alteration projects with initial costs more than $5 million, totaling 937,956 square feet. The largest is a new building project for a 923-unit, 934,864-square-foot B building developed by Axel Stawski with plans filed May 11, 2016 and it has not been permitted yet. The second largest is a new building project for a one-unit, 3,092-square-foot B building developed by Axel Stawski with plans filed December 22, 2015 and permitted November 18, 2016.
The neighborhood
In Long Island City, the bulk, or 33 percent of the 66.2 million square feet of commercial built space are residential elevator buildings, with industrial buildings next occupying 30 percent of the space. In sales, Long Island City has 4.2 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $1.2 billion in sales volume in the last two years and is the highest in Queens. For development, Long Island City is the 2nd most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 9.2 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 14 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.
The block
There are two active new building construction projects totaling 937,956 square feet. The largest is a 923-unit, 934,864-square-foot B building developed by Axel Stawski with plans filed May 11, 2016 and it has not been permitted yet.The second largest is a one-unit, 3,092-square-foot B building developed by Axel Stawski with plans filed December 22, 2015 and permitted November 18, 2016.
The majority, or 100 percent of the 100,742 square feet of built space are office buildings, with development buildings next occupying 0 percent of the space.
The seller
The PincusCo database, which is incomplete, currently indicates that Stawski Partners owned at least three commercial properties with 724,659 square feet and a city-determined market value of $332.6 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $145.7 million in debt, with top three lenders as Apple Bank for Savings, Helaba, and Landesbank Hessen-Thuringen Girozentrale respectively. Within the portfolio, all identified are office properties. They are all located in Manhattan.
Surrounding
Within a 400-foot radius of 23-15 44th Road, PincusCo identified two commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those two items, one was for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. It was a permit issued on December 15, 2020 for the $5.6 million renovation of 151,180-square-foot B building with N/A residential units at 43-10 23rd Street.
One of those two items was a sale which Sculptor Capital Management bought the 151,180-square-foot, one-unit office building (O6) on 43-10 23rd Street for $92.5 million from Kassabian Realty on December 30, 2021.
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