James Equities, Services for the Underserved pay $16.5M for dev site in Harlem

Affordable developer James Equities and Services for the Underserved through the entities 2435 FDB MM LLC and 2435 Fdb Housing Development Fund Corporation paid $16.5 million to Steven Neuman through the entity 2435 Fdb Development LLC for the development site at 2435 Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem, Manhattan.
The deal closed on September 12, 2024 and was recorded on September 18, 2024.
The seller bought the property on May 25, 2023, for $17.3 million.
The purchased was financed by a $21.3 million loan Douglas C. James signed for James Equities. The signatory for James Equities and Services for the Underserved was Douglas Walerstein. The contract date was August 27, 2024. The named buyer is a nonprofit Services for the Underserved but the beneficial ownership was simultaneously transfereed to James Equities.

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 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 $1 million on this tax lot.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 18 of the 29 commercial properties representing 527,123 square feet of the 629,019 square feet. The largest owner is Coltown Properties, followed by Genesis Companies and then L+M Development Partners.
On the tax block, there were two new building construction projects totaling 43,915 square feet. The largest is a 46-unit, 40,573 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Happy Living Development and filed by Levi Balkany with plans filed December 1, 2015 and permitted December 15, 2016. The second largest is a six-unit, 3,342 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Steven Neuman with plans filed November 17, 2021 and permitted April 29, 2022.

The majority, or 52 percent of the 629,019 square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 45 percent of the space.

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