Christopher Merone pays $4M for industrial in Gowanus

UPDATED: Christopher Merone through the entity 548-550 Union Realty LLC paid $4 million to Alan Laytner and Jeremy Katz through the entity Ralala LLC for the industrial building (E9) at 548 Union Street in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on February 28, 2024 and was recorded on March 1, 2024. The property has 4,552 square feet of built space and 6,264 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 10,800 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $878 and the price per buildable square foot is $370 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 July 27, 2021, for $2 million. The signatory for Alan Laytner and Jeremy Katz was Alan Laytner and Jeremy Katz. The signatory for Christopher Merone was Christopher Merone. The contract date was January 26, 2024. Alan Laytner is an owner of Laytner’s Linen & Home. In 2018, Laytner discussed closing the retailer’s West Side location.  Christopher Merone owns Heights Abstract, located in another building Merone owns.

The sale was brokered by Dan Marks, Andrew Manasia and Daniel Lebor of TerraCRG who represented both buyer and seller.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer Christopher Merone purchased one property in one transaction for a total of $3.3 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Alan Laytner had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The industrial building in Gowanus has 4,552 square feet of built space and 6,264 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 10,800 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 40 feet and is 90 feet deep with a total lot size of 3,600 square feet. 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 $425,000.

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 five DOB violations and $200 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 $1 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Gowanus, The bulk, or 46 percent of the 9.2 million square feet of commercial built space are industrial buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 19 percent of the space. In sales, Gowanus has 2.1 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $619.6 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 8th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Gowanus has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 17th highest in Brooklyn. It had 899,371 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 were two pre-foreclosure suit filed among other industrial buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 10 of the 20 commercial properties representing 22,040 square feet of the 62,238 square feet. The two identified owners are Brodsky Organization and Avery Hall Investments.
On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 67,431 square feet. It is a 67,431 square-foot mercantile (M) building submitted by Avery Hall and filed by Colin Mclean with plans filed October 7, 2020 and permitted April 22, 2022.

The majority, or 47 percent of the 62,238 square feet of built space are industrial buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 35 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Christopher Merone owned at least one commercial property with three residential units in New York City with 4,400 square feet and a city-determined market value of $1.9 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio consists of at least a single mixed-use property. It is located in Brooklyn.

UPDATED: The post was updated to include broker information.

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