Janus Property Company signs $50M refi loan with Wells Fargo for office in Harlem, ups debt by $30M

Janus Property Company through the entity Tsty Owner LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender Wells Fargo valued at $50 million for the office building (O6) at 450 West 126th Street in Harlem, Manhattan.
The deal closed on August 8, 2022 and was recorded on August 18, 2022. The prior lender was Signature Bank which held debt that had an original loan amount of $20 million. The property has 260,965 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $191 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 owner bought the property on December 20, 2018, for $20.1 million. The borrower signatory was Jerry J. Salama.

The property

The 450 West 126th Street parcel has frontage of 381 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 39,419 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-5/R7-2 which allows for up to 5 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing and up to 3.44 times FAR for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $41.5 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property since September of 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received $22,500 in ECB penalties and $26,310 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

On these lots, there is one active new building construction project for a 246,525-square-foot office (B) building. The project was developed by Jerry Salama with plans filed June 27, 2013 and permitted January 22, 2019.

The neighborhood

In Harlem, the bulk, or 44 percent of the 79.8 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 30 percent of the space. In sales, Harlem has 2.5 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $835.2 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 19th highest in Manhattan. For development, Harlem has 3.1 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 6th highest in Manhattan. It had 3.3 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 4 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 13 of the 29 commercial properties representing 128,588 square feet of the 552,313 square feet. The largest owner is Xiaozheng Tang, followed by New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development and then L+M Development Partners.
There are five active new building construction projects totaling 642,006 square feet. The largest is a N/A-unit, 246,525-square-foot B building developed by Jerry Salama with plans filed June 27, 2013 and permitted January 22, 2019. The second largest is a one-unit, 128,700-square-foot R-1 building developed by Yi Han with plans filed October 1, 2015 and it has not been permitted yet.

the majority, or 48 percent of the 552,313 square feet of built space are walkup buildings, with office buildings next occupying 47 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Janus Property Company owned at least one commercial property in New York City with 243,802 square feet and a city-determined market value of $42 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $45 million in debt, borrowed from Goldman Sachs. The portfolio consists of at least a single office property. It is located in Manhattan.

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