Horizon Group, Leser Group submit $105M condo plan for 65 units in Kips Bay

David Maron’s Horizon Group and Abraham Leser’s Leser Group submitted a $105 million condo plan for an under-construction 65-unit residential building at 609 Second Avenue between 33rd and 34th streets in Kips Bay, Mannattan.

In March 2019, David Marom through the entity The Horizon At Rivington LLC submitted a new building construction project for a 30-unit, 25,329 square-foot residential (R-2) building at 609 Second Avenue in Kips Bay, Manhattan. The plan was filed with the New York City Department of Buildings on March 6, 2019 under job number 123756015 and was permitted on March 30, 2021. That plan was modified and now DOB filings show the plans call for 65 units in a 66,552-square-foot building with 18 stories.

The property

The elevator building with 65 residential units in Kips Bay has 67,960 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 76 feet and is 75 feet deep with a total lot size of 5,561 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is C1-8A which allows for up to 2 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 7.52 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $5.1 million. The most recent debt totaled $58 million and was a construction loan provided by Ponce Bank on March 17, 2023.

Prior sales and revenue

This property was sold with 4 other properties for $26.5 million on October 7, 2014.

Development

On the tax lot, the most recent condominium plan was filed by FLAT LG LLC to create 65 residential units and 1 commercial units in a building at 609 2nd Avenue in Kips Bay, Manhattan, called 609 2nd Avenue Condominium that has a $105.2 million sellout, according to an November 8, 2023 submission to the New York State Attorney General. The principals of the sponsor, FLAT LG LLC, were Abraham Leser and David Marom.

Violations and lawsuits

According to city public data, the property has received $3,750 in ECB penalties and $7,920 in OATH penalties in the last year.

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months.

The neighborhood

In Kips Bay, The bulk, or 50 percent of the 21.5 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 32 percent of the space. In sales, Kips Bay has near average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $297.1 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 32nd highest in Manhattan. For development, Kips Bay has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 29th highest in Manhattan. It had 576,658 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 3 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 18 of the 30 commercial properties representing 791,973 square feet of the 1,040,151 square feet. The largest owner is Aya, followed by Donald Zweibon and then Hakim Organization. On the tax block, there were three new building construction projects totaling 218,228 square feet. The largest is a 144-unit, 134,998 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Xiaocheng Zhou with plans filed May 2, 2019 and permitted August 28, 2019. The second largest is a 32-unit, 57,901 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Extell Development and filed by Asher Schepansky with plans filed July 20, 2016 and it has not been permitted yet.

The owner

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Leser Group owned at least 30 commercial properties with 418 residential units in New York City with 1,024,924 square feet and a city-determined market value of $96.2 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $701.8 million in debt, with top three lenders as UMB Bank, Tel Aviv Stock Exchange bondholders, and Ponce Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 38 percent of the 1,024,924 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with specialty properties next occupying 22 percent of the space. The bulk, or 61 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Bronx next at 32 percent of the space.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 609 2 Avenue, PincusCo identified six commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those six items, two were sales above $5 million totaling $19.1 million. The most recent of the two was Simone Development Companies which bought one condo unit in the 12,586-square-foot, 192-unit mixed-use building (RM) on 225 East 34th Street for $11.2 million from LCOR on April 11, 2022. Of those six items, four were loans above $5 million totaling $163 million. The most recent of the four was Robert Gilardian in which borrowed $55.8 million from Bank of Montreal secured by the 118,936-square-foot, 106-unit rental (D6) on 237 East 34th Street and one other property on January 30, 2023.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page and link to DOB NOW portal.