Hefeng Chen pays $3.7M for hotel dev site in Long Island City

Hefeng Chen through the entity 3826 LIC LLC paid $3.7 million to Amit Veeramachaneni through the entity 2318 Flatbush Avenue Corporation for the hotel development site (H3) at 38-20 28th Street in Long Island City, Queens.

There is a new building project for a 51-unit, 14,036 square-foot hotel (R-1) building submitted by Amit Veeramachaneni with plans filed September 18, 2015 and it has not been permitted yet.
The deal closed on January 10, 2024 and was recorded on January 19, 2024.
The seller bought the property on May 28, 2009, for $1 million. The signatory for Amit Veeramachaneni was Neal S. Friedman. The contract date was October 6, 2023. Hefeng Cheng is listed as CEO in corporation records.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Hefeng Chen had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Amit Veeramachaneni had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The hotel building in Long Island City has 18,821 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 75 feet and is 91 feet deep with a total lot size of 6,918 square feet. The zoning is M1-2/R5B which allows for up to 2 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing and up to 1.35 times FAR for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $588,000.

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 $17,250 in ECB penalties and $17,330 in OATH penalties in the last year.

The neighborhood

In Long Island City, The bulk, or 32 percent of the 60.1 million square feet of commercial built space are industrial buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 31 percent of the space. In sales, Long Island City has the 7th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.6 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Long Island City is the 5th most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 7.6 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 13 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of three of the six commercial properties representing 24,463 square feet of the 87,177 square feet. The largest owner is Wei Jian Lei, followed by Sotirios Constantatos and then Christina Katsifas.
On the tax block, there were three new building construction projects totaling 41,725 square feet. The largest is a 51-unit, 14,036 square-foot hotel/dormitory/shelter (R-1) building submitted by Amit Veeramachaneni with plans filed September 18, 2015 and it has not been permitted yet. The second largest is a 51-unit, 14,025 square-foot hotel/dormitory/shelter (R-1) building submitted by Amit Veeramachaneni with plans filed September 19, 2012 and permitted April 14, 2014.

The majority, or 85 percent of the 87,177 square feet of built space are hotel buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 6 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Amit Veeramachaneni owned at least one commercial property with 20 residential units in New York City with 0.0 square feet and a city-determined market value of $481,000. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $7.6 million in debt, borrowed from Bank of Princeton. The portfolio consists of at least a single elevator property.

Direct link to Acris document. link