David Eng pays $3.8M for 7-unit walkup in Brooklyn Heights

David Eng through the entity 67 Fourth Avenue, LLC paid $3.8 million to Gustas Sheha through the entity Katikos, LLC for the midblock seven-unit residential walkup building at 38 Schermerhorn Street in Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on May 9, 2022 and was recorded on May 17, 2022. The property has 3,590 square feet of built space and 137 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 3,725 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,066 and the price per buildable square foot is $1,028 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 Gustas Sheha was Gustas Sheha. The signatory for David Eng was David Eng.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has no record that the buyer David Eng had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Gustas Sheha had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Mr. Gustas Sheha, head officer and Gustas Sheha, shareholder. The business entity is Katikos Llc.

The property

The 38 Schermerhorn Street parcel has frontage of 19 feet and is 80 feet deep with a total lot size of 1,533 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is R6 which allows for up to 2.43 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The property is in the Brooklyn Heights Historic District. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $2.2 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 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 $5 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Brooklyn Heights, the bulk, or 38 percent of the 21.1 million square feet of commercial built space are residential elevator buildings, with office buildings next occupying 15 percent of the space. In sales, Brooklyn Heights has had very little sales volume relative to other neighborhoods with $228.8 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Brooklyn Heights has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 261,202 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 1 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of three of the 11 commercial properties representing 13,230 square feet of the 183,462 square feet. The largest owner is Gabriel Nussbaum, followed by Mark Weinberger and then Ju Young Oh. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 48 percent of the 300,281 square feet of built space are specialty buildings, with 1-4 family buildings next occupying 33 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 38 Schermerhorn Street, PincusCo identified four commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those four items, two were for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. They were one permit applications with a total initial cost of $500,000 and one permit with a total initial cost of $375,200. The most recent of these two items was the filing on April 4, 2022 for a 5,828-square-foot residential (R-3) building with one residential units at 25 Schermerhorn Street.
Of those four items, two were sales above $5 million totaling $17.7 million. The most recent of the two was Gabriel Nussbaum which bought the 3,780-square-foot, two-unit mixed-use building (S1) on 159 Clinton Street for $6.2 million from Howard M. Schneider on February 16, 2022.

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