EMP Capital Group pays $7M for possible dev site in Crown Heights

EMP Capital Group through the entity 918 Atlantic Property Owner LLC paid $7 million to Crosstown Companies through the entity Five Star Associates LLC for the industrial building (GW) at 571 Washington Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The expected use is ground up development.
The deal closed on May 22, 2025 and was recorded on June 2, 2025. The property has 7,766 square feet of built space and 496 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 8,282 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $901 and the price per buildable square foot is $845 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 Crosstown Companies was Jonathan Somerstein . The signatory for EMP Capital Group was Eli Pariente . The contract date was June 26, 2024.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer EMP Capital Group purchased three properties in two transactions for a total of $29.2 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Crosstown Companies had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The 7,766-square-foot property generated revenue of $243,386 or $31 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The industrial building in Crown Heights has 7,766 square feet of built space and 496 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 8,282 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 71 feet and is 91 feet deep with a total lot size of 8,282 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-1 which allows for up to 1 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1.4 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months. 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 $1 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Crown Heights, The bulk, or 39 percent of the 46.5 million square feet of commercial built space are walkup buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 36 percent of the space. In sales, Crown Heights has 2.1 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $557.5 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 12th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Crown Heights has 1.3 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 11th highest in Brooklyn. It had 1.5 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 3 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other industrial buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of nine of the 31 commercial properties representing 20,250 square feet of the 160,225 square feet. The largest owner is Elliot Frankel, followed by Maude Wagner and then Zhi Ying Zhu.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 53 percent of the 160,225 square feet of built space are retail buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 35 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Emp Capital Group owned at least seven commercial properties with 502 residential units in New York City with 64,724 square feet and a city-determined market value of $24.7 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 51 percent of the 64,724 square feet of built space are industrial properties, with elevator properties next occupying 28 percent of the space. The bulk, or 72 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Manhattan next at 28 percent of the space.

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