Justin Management signs $30M refi loan with Metropolitan Commercial for office in Penn Station

Justin Management through the entity 115 West 30th Street LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender Metropolitan Commercial Bank valued at $30 million for the office building (O6) at 115 West 30th Street in Penn Station, Manhattan.
The deal closed on July 28, 2022 and was recorded on August 8, 2022. The prior lender was First Republic Bank which held debt that had an original loan amount of $30 million. The property has 151,525 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $197 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 Justin Management was David Justin. The signatories for Metropolitan Commercial Bank were Ross Dahmen and Jay Shah.

Prior sales and revenue

The 151,525-square-foot property generated revenue of $6 million or $40 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 115 West 30th Street parcel has frontage of 161 feet and is 90 feet deep with a total lot size of 12,055 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-6 which allows for up to 10 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $23.7 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 $6,250 in ECB penalties and $6,300 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 Penn Station, the majority, or 69 percent of the 22.6 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 10 percent of the space. In sales, Penn Station has had very little sales volume relative to other neighborhoods with $199.7 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Penn Station has 2.3 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 10th highest in Manhattan. It had 2.4 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 11 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other office buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of five of the 19 commercial properties representing 684,332 square feet of the 1,934,262 square feet. The largest owner is Vanbarton Group, followed by Durst Organization and then Feil Organization.
There is one active new building construction project totaling 465,620 square feet. It is a 375-unit, 465,620-square-foot R-2 building developed by Louis Esposito with plans filed April 2, 2013 and permitted March 18, 2014.

The majority, or 55 percent of the 1.5 million square feet of built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 43 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database, which is not complete, currently has identified at least two commercial properties that Justin Management owns in New York City with 214,071 square feet and a city-determined market value of $43.4 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $38 million in debt, borrowed from First Republic Bank and Apple Bank for Savings. Within the portfolio, all identified are office properties. They are all located in Manhattan.

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