City pays $5.8M to Catholic Church for property in Staten Island for schools

The New York City School Construction Authority paid $5.8 million to the Roman Catholic Church and the Church Of Saint Joseph for four specialty buildings in Rosebank, Staten Island, including (W2) at 1 Virginia Avenue.
The deal closed on December 15, 2022 and was recorded on January 20, 2023. The four properties have 14,000 square feet of built space and 14,650 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 25,900 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $414 and the price per buildable square foot is $223 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 Roman Catholic Church and Church of Saint Joseph was Anna Chen. The signatory for NYC School Construction Authority was Nina Kubota.

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 1 Virginia Avenue.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer NYC School Construction Authority purchased 14 properties in 10 transactions for a total of $135.7 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Roman Catholic Church purchased one properties in one transactions for a total of $1.5 million and sold 21 properties in 14 transactions for a total of $115 million over the same time period.

The property

The 1 Virginia Avenue parcel has frontage of 96 feet and is 227 feet deep with a total lot size of 22,500 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is R3A 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 $1.4 million.

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 not received any significant violations 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 block

On the tax block, there were two new building construction projects totaling 4,207 square feet. The largest is a two-unit, 2,764-square-foot R-3 building developed by Endri Jasa with plans filed September 29, 2020 and permitted June 28, 2022. The second largest is a one-unit, 1,443-square-foot R-3 building developed by Danny Lin with plans filed March 11, 2020 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 36 percent of the 38,490 square feet of built space are specialty buildings, with office buildings next occupying 33 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Roman Catholic Church owned at least 146 commercial properties in New York City with 4,201,141 square feet and a city-determined market value of $685.9 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 43 percent of the 4,201,141 square feet of built space are specialty properties, with M1 properties next occupying 23 percent of the space. The bulk, or 54 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Queens next at 26 percent of the space.

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