Family owners of mixed-use FiDi building file $16M bankruptcy

Members of the family that owns the Riverview Center at 70 Broad Street in the Financial District, a five-story, mixed-use office and residential building with approximately 23,000 square feet of space, placed the owner entity in bankruptcy days after a judge ruled in a related federal foreclosure case that the property should be sold at auction. The building, which is an individual city landmark, has been vacant for almost seven years, the bankruptcy filing states.

Case 24-10848-mew LINK
Chapter 11 LINK
Federal foreclosure 1:20-cv-05309-JGK-VF LINK

Shuigun Chen is identified as the guarantor in the bankruptcy, and a signatory on the bankruptcy filing. Caihong Chen, Caiyun Chen and Mingsen Chen are identified in the federal foreclosure case. Caihong Chen was the signatory for the loans.

In the bankruptcy filing, the chief restructuring officer, Ephraim Diamond of Arbel Capital Advisors, states the property is worth about $16 million and has debts totaling $24.2 million. According to Diamond’s bankruptcy affidavit, “Due to a plethora of issues including the Covid-19 Pandemic and a lack of tenants at the Property, the Debtor’s cash flow was severely damaged which in turn caused it to default on the Mortgage and Note on or around April 2020.”

The debtor through the entity 70 Broad LLC bought the building in December 2010 for $18 million. In April 2015, the owners transferred the owner entity from 70 Broad LLC to Winta Asset Management LLC. Through the new entity, the Chen family borrowed $15 million from Silverpeak Real Estate Finance. The loan was securitized and sold as bonds with the name Series 2015-NXS2.

The property

The office building with three residential units in Financial District has 19,478 square feet of built space and 11,107 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 30,600 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 44 feet and is 66 feet deep with a total lot size of 3,060 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is C5-5 which allows for up to 15 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 10 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The property is in the Individual Landmark. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $9.1 million.

Prior sales and revenue

This property was sold for $18 million on December 20, 2010.

The 19,478-square-foot property generated revenue of $1.5 million or $79 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

Development

Over the past five years, there has been no NYC Department of Buildings new building, demolition, or alteration permit application valued at more than $20,000 filed for this parcel.

Violations and lawsuits

According to city public data, the property has received 12 DOB violations and $6,000 in OATH penalties in the last year.

The neighborhood

In Financial District, The majority, or 74 percent of the 79.9 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 15 percent of the space. In sales, Financial District has the 5th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $2.1 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Financial District is the 3rd most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 9.1 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 11 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of five of the 11 commercial properties representing 1,976,862 square feet of the 2,038,224 square feet. The largest owner is Broad Street Development, followed by Jackson Mak and then Kyungho Kang. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 70 Broad Street, PincusCo identified seven commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those seven items, three were sales above $5 million totaling $207.2 million. The most recent of the three was Nassimi Realty which bought the 21,216-square-foot, five-unit office building (O5) on 74 Broad Street for $19.6 million from Caspi Development and Mactaggart Family & Partners on January 8, 2024. Of those seven items, four were loans above $5 million totaling $264.3 million. The most recent of the four was Premier Emerald, LLC in which borrowed $25.3 million from Maxim Credit Group, LLC secured by the 59,410-square-foot, one-unit hotel (H2) on 11 Stone Street on April 29, 2024.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page and link to DOB NOW portal.