CW Realty signs $61.7M refi for 69-unit rental in Williamsburg, down from $78M

CW Realty Group through the entity Kent House Owner LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender UMB Bank as trustee for the Kent House (Brooklyn, NY) (Senior Note) Lease-Backed Pass-Through Trust valued at $61.7 million for the 69-unit residential elevator building (D7) at 187 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on July 29, 2022 and was recorded on September 20, 2022. The prior lender was Invictus Real Estate Partners which held debt that had an original loan amount of $78 million. The property has 75,729 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $814 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 owner bought the property on March 16, 2017, for $42.5 million. The signatory for CW Realty Group was Cheskie Weisz. The signatory for UMB Bank and Kent House (Brooklyn, NY) (Senior Note) Lease-Backed Pass-Through Trust was Dillon Butler.

Prior sales and revenue

The owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Perl Weisz, head officer and Abraham Weider, agent. The business entity is 187 Kent Owner Llc. The 75,729-square-foot property generated revenue of $2.1 million or $27 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 187 Kent Avenue parcel has frontage of 95 feet and is 192 feet deep with a total lot size of 16,666 square feet. The zoning is M1-2/R6A which allows for up to 2 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing and up to 3 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $12.2 million.

Violations and lawsuits

The property was involved in two lawsuits and zero bankruptcies over the past two years. The highest value suit was a $77.7 million commercial foreclosure concerning a loan filed on July 19, 2021, by Invictus Real Estate Partners against CW Realty. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received four housing violations in the last year.

Development

For the tax lot building, it received its initial certificate of occupancy on September 9, 2020, for a new building construction project for a 96-unit, 82,994-square-foot R-2 building. The project was developed by Cheskie Weiss with plans filed January 20, 2017 and permitted July 27, 2018.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of three of the 13 commercial properties representing 112,178 square feet of the 185,242 square feet. The two identified owners are CW Realty Group and Shiraz Sanjana.
There have been two new building construction projects totaling 100,149 square feet. The largest was the 96-unit, 82,994-square-foot R-2 building developed by Cheskie Weiss with plans filed January 20, 2017 and permitted July 25, 2018. The second largest was a 24-unit, 17,155-square-foot R-2 building developed by Gabriel Grunblatt with plans filed September 29, 2020 and permitted June 1, 2022.

The majority, or 58 percent of the 182,595 square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with industrial buildings next occupying 28 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Cw Realty Group owned at least 26 commercial properties in New York City with 272,541 square feet and a city-determined market value of $52.8 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 53 percent of the 272,541 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with walkup properties next occupying 41 percent of the space. The bulk, or 87 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Queens next at 8 percent of the space.

Direct link to Acris document. link