Joel Schwartz signs $41.5M construction loan with Popular Bank for 150 units in Cypress Hills

Joel Schwartz through the entity 2745 Atlantic LLC as borrower signed a construction loan with lender Popular Bank valued at $41.5 million for the 150-unit project at 2753 Atlantic Avenue in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn.

On the lot, there is one active new building construction project, B00709512 (click for zoning document pdf), for a 150-unit, 107,520-square-foot residential (R-2) building. The project was submitted by Mark Chulpayev and filed by Mark Chulpayev with plans filed April 27, 2022 and permitted June 10, 2022.
The deal closed on May 22, 2025 and was recorded on June 10, 2025. The prior lender was Tideway Capital Funding which held debt that had an original loan amount of $7 million.

The loan price per planned zoning square foot is $386 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 signatory for Joel Schwartz was Joel Schwartz. The signatory for Popular Bank was Travis J. Schelhorn .

The neighborhood

In Cypress Hills, The bulk, or 24 percent of the 8.6 million square feet of commercial built space are mixed-use buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 20 percent of the space. In sales, Cypress Hills has the 38th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in Brooklyn with $75.8 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Cypress Hills has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 844,741 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 10 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other mixed-use buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of seven of the 13 commercial properties representing 32,179 square feet of the 39,444 square feet. The two identified owners are Joel Schwartz and Aaron Schwartz.
On the tax block, there were two new building construction projects totaling 37,904 square feet. The largest is a 50-unit, 30,516 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Mark Chulpayev and filed by Mark Chulpayev with plans filed April 27, 2022 and permitted June 10, 2022. The second largest is a five-unit, 7,388 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Shahriar Davaran with plans filed January 12, 2017 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 79 percent of the 39,444 square feet of built space are mixed-use buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 21 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Joel Schwartz owned at least 103 commercial properties with 1,685 residential units in New York City with 1,092,311 square feet and a city-determined market value of $186.5 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $1.4 billion in debt, with top three lenders as BridgeCity Capital, Citibank, and S3 Capital respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 56 percent of the 1,092,311 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with walkup properties next occupying 16 percent of the space. They are all located in Brooklyn.

Direct link to Acris document. link