French Bookstore pays $3M to Daniel Group for retail in Chelsea

The new book seller the French Bookstore through the entity French Bookstore Inc. paid $3 million to the Daniel Group through the entity West 27, LLC for the retail condo at 145 West 27th Street in Chelsea, Manhattan.
The deal closed on April 3, 2023 and was recorded on April 17, 2023. The property has 7,040 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $426 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 September 30, 2013, for $600,000. The signatory for Daniel Group was Raquel Wasserman. The signatory for French Bookstore was Cyril Dewavrin. According to a job posting, the bookstore has French and English books and a cafe.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer French Bookstore had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Daniel Group purchased 13 properties in three transactions for a total of $13.8 million and sold two properties in two transactions for a total of $11.1 million over the same time period.

The property

The retail condo in Chelsea has 7,040 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has a total lot size of 7,040 square feet. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $2.4 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 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 eight of the 30 commercial properties representing 600,510 square feet of the 1,319,636 square feet. The largest owner is United American Land, followed by Ny 28th Street Llc and then Justin Management.
On the tax block, there were three new building construction projects totaling 291,659 square feet. The largest is a 531-unit, 146,630 square-foot hotel/dormitory/shelter (R-1) building submitted by McSam Hotel Group and filed by Sam Chang with plans filed July 28, 2016 and permitted July 20, 2017. The second largest is a 236-unit, 125,729 square-foot hotel/dormitory/shelter (R-1) building submitted by Frank Ng and filed by Frank Ng with plans filed July 12, 2017 and permitted January 2, 2019.

The majority, or 60 percent of the 1.3 million square feet of built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 28 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Daniel Group owned at least 35 commercial properties with 343 residential units in New York City with 333,779 square feet and a city-determined market value of None. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 53 percent of the 333,779 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with walkup properties next occupying 30 percent of the space. The bulk, or 35 percent of the built space, is in Queens, with Brooklyn next at 32 percent of the space.

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