Grid Group, Cityscapes pay $21.5M to NYCHA for air rights, borrows $32M from Valley National

Grid Group and Cityscapes Realty through the entity 1440 Residential LLC paid $21.5 million to New York City Housing Authority related to a development (V1) at 1440 Amsterdam Avenue in Harlem, Manhattan. At the same time, the developers borrowed $32 million from Valley National Bank.
The deal closed on October 13, 2022 and was recorded on October 27, 2022.
This development rights purchase follows on the $6 million purchase of a parcel where the developers plan a 393-unit project.
The signatory for New York City Housing Authority was Jonathan Gouveia. The signatory for Grid Group and Cityscapes Realty was Spyridon Papakonstadinou and Yiannes Einhorn.

Development

On these lots, there is a new building project for a 393-unit, 409,961 square-foot R-2 building developed by Yiannes Einhorn with plans filed December 17, 2021 and it has not been permitted yet.

The block

On the tax block of 1440 Amsterdam Avenue, PincusCo has identified the owners of three of the four commercial properties representing 1,367,533 square feet of the 1,367,533 square feet. The two identified owners are New York City Housing Authority and City of New York.
On the tax block, there were two new building construction projects totaling 469,214 square feet. The largest is a 51-unit, 59,253-square-foot R-2 building developed by Athena Vrettos with plans filed October 14, 2014 and permitted August 24, 2015. The second largest is a 393-unit, 409,961-square-foot R-2 building developed by Yiannes Einhorn with plans filed December 17, 2021 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 94 percent of the 1.4 million square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 6 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that New York City Housing Authority owned at least 690 commercial properties in New York City with 142,293,633 square feet and a city-determined market value of $10.8 billion. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $314.1 million in debt, borrowed from NYS Housing Finance Agency and Breaking Ground. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 95 percent of the 142,293,633 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with walkup properties next occupying 5 percent of the space. The bulk, or 33 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 31 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Grid Group owned at least four commercial properties in New York City.

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