Corner Street pays $17.8M to Joel Schwartz for Brooklyn buildings, part of larger portfolio

Corner Street Capital paid $17.8 million to Joel Schwartz for two buildings in Brooklyn with a total of 13 units. These transactions are part of an expected total of $166 million for the portfolio.

In the first transaction, Corner Street Capital through the entity 217 Court LLC paid $10.3 million to Joel Schwartz through the entity Court Flats LLC for six-unit mixed-use building (S5) at 217 Court Street in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. This is part of a larger portfolio of buildings Corner Street has acquired from developer Joel Schwartz.
The deal closed on November 7, 2022 and was recorded on November 16, 2022. The property has 8,003 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,286 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 13, 2016, for $6 million. The signatory for Joel Schwartz was Joel Schwartz. The signatory for Corner Street Capital was Ross Banon.

In the second transaction, Corner Street Capital through the entity 99 North 7 LLC paid $7.5 million to Joel Schwartz through the entity North 7 Flats LLC for seven-unit residential walkup building (C1) at 99 North 7th Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on November 7, 2022 and was recorded on November 16, 2022.The property has 6,479 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,156 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 March 29, 2016, for $3.6 million. The signatory for Joel Schwartz was Joel Schwartz. The signatory for Corner Street Capital was Ross Banon.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has records that the buyer Corner Street Capital purchased 13 properties in 12 transactions for a total of $120.2 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Joel Schwartz purchased 18 properties in 14 transactions for a total of $75.9 million and sold 20 properties in 17 transactions for a total of $157.1 million over the same time period. The former owner according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development is Charles Schwartz, head officer. The business entity is Court Flats Llc.

The property

The 217 Court Street parcel has frontage of 25 feet and is 99 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,488 square feet. The zoning is R6A which allows for up to 3 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1.8 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property since September of 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received four housing violations and $380 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

For the tax lot building, it received its initial certificate of occupancy on August 22, 2017. There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $5 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Boerum Hill, the bulk, or 34 percent of the 9.3 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 16 percent of the space. In sales, Boerum Hill has near average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $352.5 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 18th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Boerum Hill has 1.2 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 15th highest in Brooklyn. It had 1.2 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 13 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other mixed-use buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of three of the 18 commercial properties representing 18,661 square feet of the 106,692 square feet. The largest owner is C. Lee Gordon Trustee, followed by Nicholas J. Guzzone Jr. and then Shaindy Schwartz.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 54 percent of the 106,692 square feet of built space are mixed-use buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 44 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Joel Schwartz owned at least 79 commercial properties in New York City with 890,402 square feet and a city-determined market value of $138.5 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $711 million in debt, with top three lenders as BridgeCity Capital, Citibank, and Starwood Capital Group respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 49 percent of the 890,402 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with walkup properties next occupying 22 percent of the space. The bulk, or 98 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Queens next at 2 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Corner Street Capital owned at least 12 commercial properties in New York City with 83,063 square feet and a city-determined market value of $15.9 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $54 million in debt, borrowed from Customers Bank. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 59 percent of the 83,063 square feet of built space are walkup properties, with elevator properties next occupying 36 percent of the space. They are all located in Brooklyn.

Direct link to Acris document. link