FlatRate Moving pays $3.8M for office condo in Chelsea

FlatRate Moving through the entity Sbic Ventures LLC paid $3.8 million to Joan Mitchell Foundation for the office condo 15 at 545 West 25th Street in Chelsea, Manhattan.
The deal closed on April 4, 2023 and was recorded on April 17, 2023. The property has 3,540 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,066 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 seller bought the property on February 27, 2007, for $3 million. The signatory for Joan Mitchell Foundation was Christa Blatchford. The signatory for FlatRate Moving was Israel Carmel.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer FlatRate Moving had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Joan Mitchell Foundation had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The office condo in Chelsea has 3,540 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has a total lot size of 3,540 square feet. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $898,241.

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 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 4th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $2.6 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Chelsea has 2.1 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 17th highest in Manhattan. It had 2.1 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 three of the 10 commercial properties representing 298,392 square feet of the 941,138 square feet. The largest owner is Moinian Group, followed by Douglas Oliver and then Artemis Real Estate Partners.
On the tax block, there were three new building construction projects totaling 424,574 square feet. The largest is a 43-unit, 148,125 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Moinian Group and filed by Aron Kirsch with plans filed July 15, 2016 and it has not been permitted yet. The second largest is a 148,114 square-foot business (B) building submitted by Moinian Group and filed by Aron Kirsch with plans filed June 13, 2019 and permitted May 20, 2020.

The majority, or 63 percent of the 941,138 square feet of built space are office buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 23 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Flatrate Moving owned at least two commercial properties in New York City with 38,325 square feet and a city-determined market value of None. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, all identified are industrial properties. They are all located in Bronx.

Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified the condo as retail. It is in fact office.

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