City pays $10.2M to St. Nicholas Home for new high school location in Bay Ridge

The City of New York through the NYC School Construction Authority paid $10.2 million to the assisted living nonprofit St. Nicholas Home for the building (I7) at 425 Ovington Avenue and the adjacent 443 Ovington Avenue, both in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. The St. Nicholas Home had an alternate address of 437 Ovington Avenue.
The deal closed on January 31, 2024 and was recorded on February 2, 2024. The two properties have 54,512 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $188 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 St. Nicholas Home was Edward Mafoud. The signatory for NYC School Construction Authority was Nina Kubota. The contract date was July 22, 2022.

The Brooklyn Paper reported in May 2023 that a new high school would replace the assisted living home, expected to have 900 seats.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer NYC School Construction Authority purchased 17 properties in nine transactions for a total of $161.1 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller St. Nicholas Home had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The specialty buildings in Bay Ridge has 54,512 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 123 feet and is 174 feet deep with a total lot size of 21,505 square feet. The zoning is R3X which allows for up to 0.5 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $5.8 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the properties for the past 24 months. In addition, according to city public data, the properties have received 13 DOB violations and $1,060 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 Bay Ridge, The bulk, or 30 percent of the 21 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 28 percent of the space. In sales, Bay Ridge has 1.9 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $569.9 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 10th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Bay Ridge has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 357,241 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 2 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On the tax block of 437 Ovington Avenue, PincusCo has identified the owners of four of the 25 commercial properties representing 83,649 square feet of the 240,620 square feet. The largest owner is Roberta L. Koeppel, followed by Jack Chulengarian and then Ismailj Demirovic.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 33 percent of the 240,620 square feet of built space are mixed-use buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 31 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Nyc School Construction Authority owned at least 20 commercial properties in New York City with 284,260 square feet and a city-determined market value of $60.6 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 46 percent of the 284,260 square feet of built space are office properties, with industrial properties next occupying 30 percent of the space. The bulk, or 86 percent of the built space, is in Queens, with Brooklyn next at 8 percent of the space.

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