F&T Group pays $32.8M to partners for Flushing Commons dev site

F&T Group through the entity TDC Fc2 LLC paid $32.8 million to partner Rockefeller Group Development through the entity Flushing Commons Sponsor Phase II JV LLC for the development site at 37-01 138th Street in Flushing, Queens.
The deal closed on June 1, 2023 and was recorded on June 12, 2023. The property has 119,985 square feet of built space and 413,697 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 533,003 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $272 and the price per buildable square foot is $61 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 December 30, 2013, for $20 million. The signatory for Rockefeller Group Development was Megumi Brod. The signatory for F&T Group was Sunny Chiu. Rockefeller Group, F&T and AECOM partnered to develop Flushing Commons, a multiparcel development project. This sale represents the original joint venture led by the Rockefeller Group selling a former parking lot site to a development group led by F&T Group. This is a portion of Phase II of Flushing Commons.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer F&T Group had purchased any other properties and sold six properties in six transactions for a total of $49.2 million over the past 24 months.
The seller Rockefeller Group Development purchased one property in one transaction for a total of $19 million and sold two properties in two transactions for a total of $39.2 million over the same time period. The 119,985-square-foot property generated revenue of $4.7 million or $39 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The industrial building in Flushing has 119,985 square feet of built space and 413,697 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 533,003 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 265 feet and is 315 feet deep with a total lot size of 154,943 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is C4-4 which allows for up to 3.4 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 3.44 times FAR for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $26 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 in the last year.

The neighborhood

In Flushing, The bulk, or 45 percent of the 37.7 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 20 percent of the space. In sales, Flushing has 2.1 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $731.1 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 4th highest in Queens. For development, Flushing has 2.6 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 5th highest in Queens. It had 2.7 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.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of six of the 18 commercial properties representing 48,593 square feet of the 318,716 square feet. The largest owner is Zl Development Group, followed by Yin Chou Hu and then Solil Management.
On the tax block, there were three new building construction projects totaling 557,976 square feet. The largest is a 148-unit, 404,480 square-foot business (B) building submitted by Rockefeller Group and filed by Frederic Sondik with plans filed October 31, 2013 and permitted December 16, 2014. The second largest is a 129,661 square-foot business (B) building submitted by Lions Group and filed by Albert Shirian with plans filed June 5, 2020 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 38 percent of the 318,716 square feet of built space are industrial buildings, with retail buildings next occupying 26 percent of the space.

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