Comjem’s $28M retail condo in Chelsea lost in foreclosure

The securitized lender CGCMT 2013-GC15 Sixth Avenue LLC acquired from Comjem Associates through the entity Christopher Chang, As Referee for the retail condo at 101 West 24th Street in Chelsea, Manhattan. The transfer was valued at $10.1 million, but the total debt as of 2022 was set at $47.4 million, according to court records. The lender filed to foreclose on the property in 2019, 160040/2019 and the judge ordered the sale in late December.
The deal closed on June 1, 2023 and was recorded on June 12, 2023. The property has 17,403 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $579 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 October 11, 2012, for $2.2 million. The signatory for the court on behalf of the Comjem Associates entity was Christopher E. Chang. Comjem bought the retail condo in 2008 for $27.8 million, then in 2013 upped the debt to $34 million. As of 2022, when a judge ordered the foreclosure and sale of the property, the total debt had risen to $47.4 million.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer CGCMT 2013-GC15 SIXTH AVENUE had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Comjem Associates purchased one property in one transaction for a total of $4.8 million and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The retail condo in Chelsea has 17,403 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has a total lot size of 17,403 square feet. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $9.6 million.

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 Chelsea, The bulk, or 36 percent of the 52.4 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 28 percent of the space. In sales, Chelsea has the 4th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $2.6 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Chelsea has 1.8 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 18th highest in Manhattan. It had 1.8 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 3 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 11 of the 25 commercial properties representing 675,168 square feet of the 1,107,133 square feet. The largest owner is Vishwaas, followed by Sabet Group and then Rosen Equities.
On the tax block, there were five new building construction projects totaling 329,947 square feet. The largest is a 341-unit, 141,734 square-foot hotel/dormitory/shelter (R-1) building submitted by Lam Generation and filed by Jeffrey Lam with plans filed September 17, 2014 and permitted February 3, 2016. The second largest is a 375-unit, 126,733 square-foot hotel/dormitory/shelter (R-1) building submitted by Sal Aquilato with plans filed February 14, 2018 and permitted July 29, 2020.

The majority, or 49 percent of the 1.1 million square feet of built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 36 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Comjem Associates owned at least six commercial properties with 32 residential units in New York City with 97,028 square feet and a city-determined market value of $23.4 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $59.4 million in debt, borrowed from Signature Bank. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 49 percent of the 97,028 square feet of built space are office properties, with retail properties next occupying 21 percent of the space. The bulk, or 55 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 25 percent of the space.

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