Hennick & Company pays $153M to Gazit Horizons for retail in Lenox Hill

Toronto-based Hennick & Company through the entity 401 East Sixty Holdings LP paid $153 million to Gazit Horizons through the entity Gazit Horizons (Bridge Tower) LLC for two retail condominium units and the garage unit at 401 East 60th Street in Lenox Hill, Manhattan. Hennick & Company made the acquisition in two transactions, one for $150.5 million and another for $2.5 million.

The deal closed on January 10, 2024 and was recorded on January 12 and 16, 2024. The two properties have about 123,000 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,235 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 signatories for Gazit Horizons were Zvi Gordon and Lisa Freifeld. The signatories for Hennick & Company were Jory Hennick and Arty Commisso. The contract date was more than a year ago, on December 11, 2022, according to the transfer documents.

According to a company press release, the Hennick family controls Hennick & Company, and the “Hennick Family is the founding and largest shareholder of two public companies, Colliers International Group Inc. and FirstService Corporation.”

At the same time, Hennick & Company assumed a $134.4 million mortgage held by UMB Bank.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer Hennick & Company has not purchased any other property and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Gazit Horizons had not purchased or sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The larger of the two retail condos in Lenox Hill has 121,841 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has a total lot size of 93,139 square feet. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $29.9 million. The most recent loan totaled $134.4 million and was provided by UMB Bank on August 5, 2021.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the properties for the past 24 months. In addition, according to city public data, the properties have not received any significant violations in the last year.

The neighborhood

In Lenox Hill, The bulk, or 35 percent of the 52 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 28 percent of the space. In sales, Lenox Hill has the highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $4.1 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Lenox Hill is the 9th most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 4.4 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 9 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On the tax block of 401 East 60th Street, PincusCo has identified the owners of two of the four commercial properties representing 590,848 square feet of the 681,034 square feet. The identified owner is Orbach Affordable Housing Solutions.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 87 percent of the 681,034 square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with office buildings next occupying 7 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Gazit Horizons owned at least one commercial property in New York City with 20,000 square feet and a city-determined market value of $4.7 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $170.8 million in debt, with top three lenders as UMB Bank, New York Life Insurance Company, and Valley National Bank respectively. The portfolio consists of at least a single retail property. It is located in Brooklyn.

Direct link to Acris document. link