Courts: $5M bankruptcy; Regulated landlord sues city, state for $5M; $7.5M Rockaway pre-foreclosure

$5M West Village involuntary bankruptcy: A junior lender filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition yesterday on a West Village property with $5.025 million in secured debt. The property, owned by Mary Kaplan according to property records through the entity Archimedean Solutions LLC, is a 4-story West Village walkup at 432 Hudson Street with three residential units and one commercial unit, with 4,424 square feet on a 22-foot wide lot. The filing is an involuntary petition, of a single-asset real estate partnership, and was filed by Steven Rosenberg of Emberly Capital, citing “contract” as “nature of petitioner’s claim.” The property has a senior loan with an original principal of $4.5 million from BDJ Equities from 2018 and a $525,000 loan from Emberly Capital from June 2019. The owner signatory for those loans was Mary E. Kaplan. LINK

Court filings are the positions of one party and are not necessarily accurate or complete.

Regulated landlord sues city, state for $5M citing “taking” in Gramercy: The plaintiff, Lynette Ciner’s Tedford’s Tenancy, LLC, alleges that rent regulation laws are a government taking of the value of the property, which they state is a loss of $5 million. The building is a six-floor, mixed-use walkup at 294 Third Avenue with 24 feet of frontage, located just south of 23rd Street in Gramercy. The property is more than 100 years old, according to the complaint, and in need of repairs, but the rent-regulated tenants are not paying enough to support the repairs, according to the complaint. The complaint states, “judgment should be granted declaring the Property not subject to the RSL (Rent Stabilization Law) or just compensation should be paid to Plaintiff.”
The Building has been owned directly or indirectly by Lynette Ciner’s family since the 1940s. The complaint states that, “On or about July 14, 1978, Plaintiff’s predecessor-in-interest entered into a ground lease (the “Initial Ground Lease”) with Horizons Investor’s Inc. (“Horizons”) for the entire Building. On or about July 23, 1996, Horizons exercised their option to renew the Ground Lease for a period of 21 years with a termination date of July 14, 2020 (the “Renewal” and collectively with the Initial Ground Lease the “Ground Lease”). On the expiration of the Ground Lease in July 2020, Plaintiff reentered the Building as the landlord.”
“In summary, the City has turned the Property into a privately funded housing project and expects the Ciners to contribute their retirement funds and disability payments to allow tenants to reside at the Property.” LINK

$7M pre-foreclosure on Springfield Gardens commercial: The State Bank of Texas filed to foreclosure on a $7.25 million loan secured by a 22,193-square-foot, two-story commercial building at 153-95 Rockaway Boulevard in Springfield Gardens, Queens. The loan is from 2016, and the signatory for the owner is Miriam Chan. The complaint states, “The Loan matured on April 1, 2021 (the “Maturity Date”). The Borrower has defaulted under the Loan Documents. More specifically Borrower has failed to comply with the terms and provisions of the Loan Documents, for among other things, failure to pay off the Loan by the Maturity Date.” LINK