FREO Group pays $19.3M to Kourakas Family for residential elevator in Lower East Side

FREO Group through the entity 165 Eldridge Owner LLC paid $19.3 million to Kourakas Family through the entity Eldridge Chuck Corp. for the midblock 18-unit residential elevator building at 167 Eldridge Street in Lower East Side, Manhattan.
The deal closed on May 13, 2022 and was recorded on June 15, 2022. The property has 32,700 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $589 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 Kourakas Family was John G. Kourakas. The signatory for FREO Group was Meng Lee. Hippocrates Kourakas signed on the previous mortgage for the family.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has no record that the buyer FREO Group had purchased any other properties and sold one properties in one transactions for a total of $34 million over the past 24 months.
The seller Kourakas Family had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes John Kourakos, head officer and Alex Cacho, site manager. The business entity is Schoolyard Enterprises Llc.

The property

The 167 Eldridge Street parcel has frontage of 50 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 5,029 square feet. The zoning is C4-4A which allows for up to 4 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 4 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $8.3 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 $100 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 Lower East Side, the majority, or 60 percent of the 33.2 million square feet of commercial built space are residential elevator buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 15 percent of the space. In sales, Lower East Side has 2.5 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $677.8 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 18th highest in Manhattan. For development, Lower East Side has 2.4 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 9th highest in Manhattan. It had 2.2 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 7 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other residential elevator buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of three of the 16 commercial properties representing 221,380 square feet of the 476,770 square feet. The largest owner is New York City Housing Authority, followed by Ricky Liang and then Kranken House. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 41 percent of the 375,087 square feet of built space are specialty buildings, with residential elevator buildings next occupying 28 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 167 Eldridge Street, PincusCo identified five commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those five items, one was for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. It was a permit issued on June 2, 2021 for the $24.2 million renovation of 104,300-square-foot I-2 building with no residential units at 45 Rivington Street.
Of those five items, four were loans above $5 million totaling $41.4 million. The most recent of the four was R.A. Cohen & Associates which borrowed $6.5 million from Dime Community Bank secured by the 21,648-square-foot, 30-unit rental (C7) on 135 Eldridge Street on April 19, 2022.

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