City Urban Realty signs $16.8M construction loan with Cerco for retail dev site in SoHo

City Urban Realty through the entity 144 Spring Holdings LLC as borrower signed a new construction loan with lender Cerco Funding through the entity Cerco Bl9 LLC valued at $16.8 million for the development building (V1) at 144 Spring Street in SoHo, Manhattan.

On the lot, there is one active new building construction project, M01376074, for a 3,661 square-foot, two-story-with-penthouse, retail building. The project was submitted by City Urban Realty and filed by Michael Alvandi with plans filed March 25, 2026 and it has not been permitted yet.

The deal closed on February 27, 2026 and was recorded on April 3, 2026. The prior lender was 2 Palms Capital which held debt that had an original loan amount of $3 million. The property has zero square feet of built space and 8,000 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 8,000 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per planned construction zoning square foot is $4,588 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 owner bought the property on February 27, 2026, for $14 million. The signatory for City Urban Realty was Michael Alvandi . The signatory for Cerco Funding was Franz F. Cervinka .

The property

The parcel has frontage of 20 feet and is 80 feet deep with a total lot size of 1,600 square feet. The zoning is M1-5/R7X which allows for up to 5 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing and up to 5 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1.2 million.

Transaction Participants

Seth Niedermayer at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer (Us) LLP participated in the transaction on behalf of the lender.

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 $25,000 in ECB penalties and $25,050 in OATH penalties in the last year.

The neighborhood

In SoHo, The bulk, or 46 percent of the 9.5 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 14 percent of the space. In sales, SoHo has the 7th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.8 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, SoHo has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 1 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 11 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of eight of the 12 commercial properties representing 156,660 square feet of the 187,863 square feet. The largest owner is Macquarie Group, followed by Christian Cigrang and then Reuben Brothers.
On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 3,661 square feet. It is a 3,661 square-foot 69 building submitted by City Urban Realty and filed by Michael Alvandi with plans filed March 25, 2026 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 62 percent of the 187,863 square feet of built space are office buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 21 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that city urban realty owned at least 11 commercial properties with 173 residential units in New York City with 179,515 square feet and a city-determined market value of $40 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $82.5 million in debt, with top three lenders as Israel Discount Bank, Northeast Bank, and Signature Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 54 percent of the 179,515 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with walkup properties next occupying 27 percent of the space. The bulk, or 79 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 21 percent of the space.

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