Jeno Guttmann signs $76M loan with Signature Bank for 21 properties in Manhattan

Jeno Guttmann through the entity 2180 Amsterdam Avenue LLC (and others) as borrower signed a loan with lender Signature Bank valued at $76 million for 21 properties including the 54-unit residential walkup building (C7) at 2608 Amsterdam Avenue in Washington Heights, Manhattan, 34-unit residential walkup building (C1) at 516 West 188th Street in Washington Heights, Manhattan, and 30-unit residential walkup building (C1) at 514 West 184th Street in Washington Heights, Manhattan.
The deal closed on June 29, 2022 and was recorded on July 6, 2022. The 21 properties have 416,056 square feet of built space and 5,047 square feet of additional air rights according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $182 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.)

Because multiple properties have been transacted, some of the following sections will follow the property with the largest assessed value, which in this case, is the property on 524 West 184th Street.

Prior sales and revenue

The owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Herman Rubin, head officer and Moses Mizrahi, shareholder. The business entities are Washington Towers Llc and 524 West 184th Street Llc. Out of the 21 properties, 19 with a total of 416,056 square feet of built space generated revenue of $6.5 million per year.

The property

The 524 West 184th Street parcel has frontage of 70 feet and is 79 feet deep with a total lot size of 5,625 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is R7-2 which allows for up to 3.44 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1.5 million.
The 2608 Amsterdam Avenue parcel has frontage of 89 feet and is 135 feet deep with a total lot size of 12,116 square feet. The zoning is R7-2 which allows for up to 3.44 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1.4 million.
The 236 East 118th Street parcel has frontage of 25 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,523 square feet. The zoning is R7A which allows for up to 4 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1.3 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the properties since September of 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the properties have received five DOB violations, $30,060 in ECB penalties, 139 housing violations, and $34,200 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $5 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Washington Heights, the bulk, or 50 percent of the 77.4 million square feet of commercial built space are residential elevator buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 23 percent of the space. In sales, Washington Heights has 1.7 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $545.7 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 26th highest in Manhattan. For development, Washington Heights has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 24th highest in Manhattan. It had 927,932 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 1 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other residential walkup buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On the tax block of 524 West 184th Street, PincusCo has identified the owners of nine of the 19 commercial properties representing 328,886 square feet of the 546,257 square feet. The largest owner is City of New York, followed by Moses Mizrahi and then Susan Moy. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 32 percent of the 621,174 square feet of built space are specialty buildings, with residential elevator buildings next occupying 31 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 524 West 184th Street, PincusCo identified three commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those three items, two were sales above $5 million totaling $14.3 million. The most recent of the two was Elysee Investment Corp which bought the 36,108-square-foot, 41-unit rental (D7) on 2502 Amsterdam Avenue for $8.5 million from Cammeby’s International Group on March 22, 2022.
One of those three items was a loan which Elysee Investment Corp borrowed $90.4 million from Morgan Stanley secured by the 73,336-square-foot, 41-unit rental (D7) on 2502 Amsterdam Avenue and 11 other properties on March 31, 2022.

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