Financial advisor pays Samson Mgmt. $31M for Chelsea office, down from $54M in 2012

Feiner Grant Strategies through the entity Universal Communications Network Inc. paid $31 million to Queens-based landlord Samson Management through the entity 129 West 29th Street LLC for the office building (O6) at 129 West 29th Street in Chelsea, Manhattan.
The deal closed on April 5, 2024 and was recorded on April 15, 2024. The property has 85,869 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $361 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.)
Samson Management bought the property on August 7, 2012, for $54 million.
According to its website, Feiner Grant Strategies, “assists nonprofit and for profit organizations to secure funding from government, foundations, corporations and donors.”

The signatory for Samson Management was Brian McCarthy.

Feiner Grant Strategies financed the purchase with a $23.25 million loan from the International Bank of Chicago. The most recent debt totaled $46 million and was given by New York Community Bank.

The property

The parcel has frontage of 74 feet and is 98 feet deep with a total lot size of 7,251 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-6 which allows for up to 10 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $21.2 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 received one DOB violation and $2,920 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

For the tax lot building, it received its initial certificate of occupancy on July 16, 2012. 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 Chelsea, The bulk, or 36 percent of the 52.4 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 28 percent of the space. In sales, Chelsea has the 9th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.2 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Chelsea has 1.7 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 17th highest in Manhattan. It had 2 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 4 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of nine of the 17 commercial properties representing 554,385 square feet of the 898,617 square feet. The largest owner is Bernstein Real Estate, followed by Davis Companies and then Empire Capital Holdings.
On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 135,003 square feet. It is a 135,003 square-foot storage (S-1) building submitted by David Companies and filed by Stephen Skolas with plans filed July 9, 2020 and permitted July 13, 2021.

The majority, or 86 percent of the 898,617 square feet of built space are office buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 8 percent of the space.

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