Jin Zhang pays $12M to Vaughn College for school building in Ditmars Steinway

Jin Zhang through the entity 43-05 Realty Group LLC paid $12 million to Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology for the educational building (W4) at 43-05 20th Avenue in Ditmars Steinway, Queens.
The deal closed on October 22, 2025 and was recorded on October 31, 2025. The property has 33,200 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $361 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 seller bought the property on February 8, 2017, for $9.3 million. The signatory for Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology was Sharon B. DeVivo . The signatory for Jin Zhang was Jin Zhang. The contract date was July 1, 2025.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Jin Zhang had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The specialty building in Ditmars Steinway has 33,200 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 100 feet and is 300 feet deep with a total lot size of 30,000 square feet. The zoning is M1-1 which allows for up to 1 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $3.4 million.

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

For the tax lot building, it received its initial certificate of occupancy on January 14, 2014. There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $1 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Ditmars Steinway, The bulk, or 41 percent of the 11.3 million square feet of commercial built space are walkup buildings, with industrial buildings next occupying 25 percent of the space. In sales, Ditmars Steinway has 1.3 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $393.9 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 5th highest in Queens. For development, Ditmars Steinway has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 339,849 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 one of the seven commercial properties representing 8,000 square feet of the 132,700 square feet. The identified owner is Sophia Yuqiong Guo.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 75 percent of the 132,700 square feet of built space are industrial buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 25 percent of the space.

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