George Xu’s Century Development pays $14.2M for 3-parcel LIC dev site

George Xu’s Century Development Group paid $14.2 million in two transactions with two separate sellers for three adjacent parcels that make up a development site in Long Island City, Queens, at the corner of 45th Road and 21st Street, a block north of MoMA’s PS1 contemporary art museum.

In the larger transaction, Century Development Group through the entity 21 St Ventures, LLC paid $10 million to Lawrence R. Hutzler through the entity Hutzler Manufacturing Co., Inc. for the midblock industrial building at 45-36 21st Street in Long Island City, Queens and the adjacent midblock industrial lot.
The deal closed on March 28, 2022 and was recorded on April 18, 2022.

The two properties have 6,025 square feet of built space and 22,117 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 28,125 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,659 and the price per buildable square foot is $355 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 Lawrence R. Hutzler was Lawrence R. Hutzler. The signatory for Century Development Group was George Xu.

In the second transaction, Century Development Group through the entity 21 St Ventures, LLC paid $4.2 million to Ann Mergler and Mark Mergler through the entity 45-28 21st Street, LLC for the corner office building at 45-28 21st Street in Long Island City, Queens.
The deal closed on March 28, 2022 and was recorded on April 18, 2022. The property has 4,500 square feet of built space and 7,654 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 12,150 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $942 and the price per buildable square foot is $348 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 Ann Mergler and Mark Mergler was Ann Mergler. The signatory for Century Development Group was George Xu. George Xu is the founder of Century Development Group. Ann Mergler and Mark Mergler were signatories on a previous deed.

Because multiple properties have been transacted, some of the following sections will follow the property with the largest assessed value, which in this case, is the property on 45-36 21st Street.

The property

The 45-36 21st Street parcel has frontage of 75 feet and is 89 feet deep with a total lot size of 6,675 square feet. The zoning is R6A which allows for up to 3 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $706,000.

Violations and lawsuits

The properties were not involved in any lawsuits or bankruptcies in the past years. In addition, according to city public data, the properties have 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 $5 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Long Island City, the bulk, or 33 percent of the 66.2 million square feet of commercial built space are residential elevator buildings, with industrial buildings next occupying 30 percent of the space. In sales, Long Island City has 4.2 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $1.2 billion in sales volume in the last two years and is the highest in Queens. For development, Long Island City is the 2nd most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 9.2 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 14 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On the tax block of 45-36 21st Street, PincusCo has identified the owners of one of the five commercial properties representing 56,000 square feet of the 80,025 square feet. The identified owner is Century Development Group. There are seven active new building construction projects totaling 981,904 square feet. The largest is a two-unit, 140,272-square-foot R-3 building developed by Adam Ginsburg with plans filed May 13, 2015 and permitted September 15, 2016. The second largest is a two-unit, 140,272-square-foot R-3 building developed by Adam Ginsburg with plans filed May 19, 2015 and permitted August 5, 2016.

The majority, or 64 percent of the 220,611 square feet of built space are 1-4 family buildings, with office buildings next occupying 34 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Century Development Group owned at least seven commercial properties with 347,862 square feet and a city-determined market value of $26.8 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $148 million in debt, with top three lenders as Sovcombank, Maxim Credit Group, and MFI Capital respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 53 percent of the 347,862 square feet of built space are residential elevator properties, with office properties next occupying 21 percent of the space. They are all located in Queens.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 45-36 21st Street, PincusCo identified one commercial real estate item of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
It was a loan which GDC Properties borrowed $77.9 million from JPMorgan Chase secured by the 3,330-square-foot, two-unit two-family building (B1) on 11-21A 46th Avenue and 37 other properties on October 20, 2021.

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