Contractor pays $8.5M to manufacturer for industrial in Long Island City

Central Construction Management through the entity Universal Counterweight Property Group 2 LLC paid $8.5 million to Koenig Iron Works through the entity Vernon Associates LLC for the industrial building (F4) at 37-11 Vernon Boulevard in Long Island City, Queens. The expected use is owner-occupied.
The deal closed on August 21, 2024 and was recorded on August 23, 2024. The property has 11,050 square feet of built space and 113,995 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 124,995 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $769 and the price per buildable square foot is $68 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 Koenig Iron Works was Barry Leistner. The signatory for Central Construction Management was company principal Greg Kalamaras. The contract date was May 21, 2024.

Barry Leistner is president and CEO of Koenig Iron Works. According to the website, “Mr. Leistner is an owner and managing member of several real estate development companies, and also serves on the Board of Directors of Nathan’s Famous Inc., a publicly held food service, real estate, and franchising company.”

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Central Construction Management had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Koenig Iron Works had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The industrial building in Long Island City has 11,050 square feet of built space and 113,995 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 124,995 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 100 feet and is 200 feet deep with a total lot size of 24,999 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-3 which allows for up to 5 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $958,000.

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 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 $1 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Long Island City, The bulk, or 32 percent of the 60.2 million square feet of commercial built space are industrial buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 31 percent of the space. In sales, Long Island City has the 8th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.1 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Long Island City has 4.1 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the highest in Queens. It had 4.5 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 7 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There were three pre-foreclosure suit filed among other industrial buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 5,895 square feet. It is a 5,895 square-foot 56 building submitted by Emily Erceg and filed by Emily Erceg with plans filed May 19, 2023 and it has not been permitted yet.

All properties are industrial.

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