Forest Hills Property Group pays $12M for mixed-use in Forest Hills

Forest Hills Property Group through the entity 7020 Austin Associates LLC paid $12 million to James A. Rubin through the entity Mowry Realty Associates, LLC for the mixed-use building (K2) at 70-20 Austin Street in Forest Hills, Queens.
The deal closed on November 2, 2022 and was recorded on November 10, 2022. The property has 32,000 square feet of built space for a total buildable of 32,000 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $375 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 James A. Rubin was James A. Rubin. The signatory for Forest Hills Property Group was Joel Mandel.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Forest Hills Property Group had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller James A. Rubin had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The 32,000-square-foot property generated revenue of $1.3 million or $40 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 70-20 Austin Street parcel has frontage of 160 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 16,000 square feet. The zoning is R5D which allows for up to 2 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $5.6 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 received one DOB violation, $1,250 in ECB penalties, and $1,330 in OATH penalties 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 Forest Hills, the majority, or 62 percent of the 15 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 12 percent of the space. In sales, Forest Hills has had very little sales volume relative to other neighborhoods with $104.5 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Forest Hills has 1.3 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 8th highest in Queens. It had 1.3 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 9 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 16 of the 30 commercial properties representing 346,681 square feet of the 575,241 square feet. The largest owner is Triumph Real Estate Management, followed by Michael Meyer and then Ilysa Mikhailov.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 33 percent of the 534,164 square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with retail buildings next occupying 20 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Forest Hills Property Group owned at least three commercial properties in New York City with 20,320 square feet and a city-determined market value of $7 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 53 percent of the 20,320 square feet of built space are mixed-use properties, with walkup properties next occupying 47 percent of the space. The bulk, or 53 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Manhattan next at 47 percent of the space.

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