Chestnut Holdings pays $5.7M for 43-unit elevator rental in West Farms

Chestnut Holdings through the entity 900 Bps LLC paid $5.7 million to Chanie A. Bierman through the entity C H A B Realty, LLC for the midblock 43-unit residential elevator building at 900 Bronx Park South in West Farms, Bronx.
The deal closed on April 4, 2022 and was recorded on April 15, 2022.

The property has 47,530 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $119 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 May 17, 2012, for $3.4 million. The signatory for Chanie A. Bierman was Chanie A. Bierman. The signatory for Chestnut Holdings was Jonathan Wiener.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer Chestnut Holdings purchased 43 properties in 38 transactions for a total of $249.7 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Chanie A. Bierman 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 Abraham Bierman, head officer and Oscar Garcia, site manager. The business entities are C H A B Realty, Llc and C H A B Realty Llc.

The property

The 900 Bronx Park South parcel has frontage of 109 feet and is 106 feet deep with a total lot size of 13,554 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is R7-1 which allows for up to 3.44 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1.6 million.

Violations and lawsuits

The property was not involved in any lawsuits or bankruptcies in the past years. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received 28 housing violations and $3,250 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 West Farms, the majority, or 63 percent of the 7 million square feet of commercial built space are residential elevator buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 15 percent of the space. In sales, West Farms has the 39th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in Bronx with $9.4 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, West Farms has 1.2 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 8th highest in Bronx. It had 1.1 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 16 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of two of the 15 commercial properties representing 86,483 square feet of the 249,752 square feet. The two identified owners are Metropolitan Realty Group and Berel Barry Farkas. There is one active new building construction project totaling 46,626 square feet. It is a 69-unit, 46,626-square-foot R-2 building developed by Hershy Silberstein with plans filed July 9, 2021 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 60 percent of the 268,908 square feet of built space are residential elevator buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 33 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Chestnut Holdings owned at least 34 commercial properties with 1,516,806 square feet and a city-determined market value of $154.8 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $211.2 million in debt, with top three lenders as JPMorgan Chase, New York Community Bank, and Signature Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 51 percent of the 1,516,806 square feet of built space are residential walkup properties, with residential elevator properties next occupying 42 percent of the space. The bulk, or 67 percent of the built space, is in Bronx, with Manhattan next at 19 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 900 Bronx Park South, PincusCo identified three commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those three items, one was in new building development. It was a new building permit application filed on July 9, 2021 for a 42,926-square-foot R-2 building with 69 residential units at 2136 Honeywell Avenue.
Of those three items, two were loans above $5 million totaling $65.8 million. The most recent of the two was Eli Bleeman which borrowed $27 million from Santander Bank secured by the 48,440-square-foot, 55-unit rental (D1) on 922 Bronx Park South and four other properties on March 16, 2022.

Direct link to Acris document. link