Century Development Group submits $118.9M condo plan in LIC

George Xu’s Century Development Group submitted a $118.9 million condominium plan for its development at 11-36 45th Road in Long Island City, Queens, known as the Vesta Condominium.
The plan was filed by MPS TWO, LLC to create 115 residential units and 1 commercial units in a building at 11-36 45th Road in Long Island City, Queens, called Vesta Condominiumthat has a $118.9 million sellout, according to an April 24, 2024 submission to the New York State Attorney General. The principal of the sponsor, MPS TWO, LLC, was George Xu.

Century Development Group submitted a new building construction project for a 115-unit residential (R-2) building at 11-36 45th Road in Long Island City, Queens. The plan was filed with the New York City Department of Buildings on August 8, 2022 under job number Q00785605 and was permitted on December 1, 2023. It calls for the construction of a seven-story building.

The property

The parcel has frontage of 175 feet and is 200 feet deep with a total lot size of 34,499 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-4/R6A which allows for up to 2 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing and up to 3 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $8.3 million. The most recent loan totaled $43 million and was provided by Bank Hapoalim on May 25, 2023.

Violations and lawsuits

According to city public data, the property has received one DOB violation, $28,750 in ECB penalties, and $31,625 in OATH penalties in the last year.

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months.

The neighborhood

In Long Island City, The bulk, or 32 percent of the 60.1 million square feet of commercial built space are industrial buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 31 percent of the space. In sales, Long Island City has the 6th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.4 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Long Island City is the 7th most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 6.2 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 10 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other development buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of five of the five commercial properties representing 80,025 square feet of the 80,025 square feet. The identified owner is Century Development Group. On the tax block, there were three new building construction projects totaling 140,272 square feet. The largest is a two-unit, 140,272 square-foot residential (R-3) building submitted by Adam Ginsburg with plans filed May 13, 2015 and permitted April 12, 2016. The second largest is a 119-unit residential (R-2) building submitted by Century Development Group and filed by George Jiapeng Xu with plans filed August 8, 2022 and permitted December 1, 2023.

The owner

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Century Development Group owned at least 12 commercial properties with 293 residential units in New York City with 360,267 square feet and a city-determined market value of $49.6 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $407.7 million in debt, with top three lenders as Maxim Capital Group, Bank Hapoalim, and Citibank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 52 percent of the 360,267 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with office properties next occupying 26 percent of the space. They are all located in Queens.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 11-40 45 Road, PincusCo identified one commercial real estate item of interests occurred over the past 24 months. It was a sale which Century Development Group bought the 13,500-square-foot, one-unit office building (O5) on 45-46 21st Street for $6 million from Miguel Oks on October 23, 2023.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page and link to DOB NOW portal.