Castle Senior Living at Forest Hills sells for $49.5M

Avi Lustig through the entity Waldron Street Owner LLC paid $49.5 million to Reuben Seltzer, Michael Alon, and Irwin Adelsberg through the entity Albro Re LLC for the Castle Senior Living at Forest Hills buildings (N2) at 108-25 Horace Harding Expwy in Corona, Queens and specialty building (N2) at 108-15 Horace Harding Expwy in Corona, Queens.
The deal closed on September 21, 2022 and was recorded on October 4, 2022. The two properties have 75,733 square feet of built space and 119,710 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 195,755 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $653 and the price per buildable square foot is $252 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 Reuben Seltzer, Michael Alon, and Irwin Adelsberg was Reuben Seltzer, Michael Alon, and Irwin Adelsberg. The signatory for Avi Lustig was Avi Lustig.

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 108-25 Horace Harding Expwy.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has no record that the buyer Avi Lustig had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Reuben Seltzer 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 Murray Alon, head officer and Alan Rose, lessee. The business entities are Forest Hills Senior Corp and The Midway Company, Llc.

The property

The 108-25 Horace Harding Expwy parcel has frontage of 253 feet and is 200 feet deep with a total lot size of 48,616 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is C4-2 which allows for up to 3.4 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 2.43 times FAR for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $12.2 million.The most recent loan totaled $12.3 million and was provided by M&T Bank on October 28, 2021.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the properties since September of 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the properties have received six DOB violations, $312 in ECB penalties, and $1,997 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 Corona, the bulk, or 48 percent of the 12.1 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 14 percent of the space. In sales, Corona has the 27th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in Queens with $65.6 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Corona has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 157,968 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 1 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Reuben Seltzer owned at least two commercial properties in New York City with 75,733 square feet and a city-determined market value of $15.7 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $12.3 million in debt, borrowed from M&T Bank. Within the portfolio, all identified are N2 properties. They are all located in Queens.

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