Courts roundup: Investor says Joel Schreiber owes $1.5M, retail lease suits in Hell’s Kitchen, Alphabet City

Investor claims Joel Schreiber still owes $1.5M from 2018 purchase: The plaintiff, an affiliate of Israeli investor Hanania Shemesh, alleges Watermark Capital CEO Joel Schreiber defaulted on a February 2022 confession of judgment totaling $1.675 million, which represented the unpaid balance from Schreiber’s $3 million purchase in 2018 of a 29.24 percent interest in 2307 Broadway, a three-story, 9,900-square-foot retail building. Schreiber already owned the property at the time of the partial interest purchase, controlling the majority, or 70.76 %, according to the filing. Schreiber’s entity that owns 2307 Broadway was also a co-borrower under a $20 million line of credit from Goldman Sachs. That bank is actively pursuing repayment of that loan, which it claim is in default, in another New York State Supreme Court case, 656597/2021  LINK

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

$2.6M retail lease suit in Hell’s Kitchen: The landlord, an affiliate of Chestnut Holdings, is suing a former retail tenant for unpaid back rent of about $866,000, as well as rent due under the lease expiration in 2026 at 700 Ninth Avenue, for a total of about $2.6 million. The walkup building with 13 residential units in Hell’s Kitchen has 13,800 square feet of built space and 3,724 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 17,518 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data.
The parcel has frontage of 29 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,910 square feet. The zoning is R8 which allows for up to 6.02 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $4.6 million. The most recent loan totaled $13.5 million and was provided by New York Community Bank on October 20, 2021. LINK

$1.3M retail lease suit in Alphabet City: An affiliate of Croman Real Estate, now known as Centennial Properties NY, alleges that a former tenant at 40 Avenue B in Alphabet City owes back rent and future rent obligations totaling $1.3 million. According to the complaint, “On or about February 26, 2021, Plaintiff and The Carnaval LLC entered into a ten-year written Lease Agreement with a graduated rent schedule for the Premises… The Lease expires by its terms on January 31, 2031.” The unpaid rent through September 2022, when the tenant was evicted, was $184,983.41. The rest of the $1.3 million is future rent, fees, etc., according to the complaint.
The walkup building with eight residential units in Alphabet City has 8,075 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The property is owned by Croman Real Estate. The parcel has frontage of 24 feet and is 80 feet deep with a total lot size of 1,920 square feet. The zoning is R7A which allows for up to 4 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $5.1 million. LINK