Landmarked Gowanus building sells for $5.8M to woodworking attorney

Woodworker and tax partner at the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Ron Creamer, paid $5.8 million to the company Neo-Bauhaus Design Factory for the landmarked Montauk Paint Manufacturing Company Building (F5), at 170 Second Avenue in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on September 25, 2024 and was recorded on October 4, 2024. The property has 13,968 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $412 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 Neo-Bauhaus Design Factory was Antovk Pidedjian. The signatory for the buyer was Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s Ron Creamer. The contract date was August 28, 2024. According to a Landmark Commission designation report from 2019 for this building, an individual city landmark, “The Montauk Paint Manufacturing Company Building was built in 1908 as part of the growing industrial development surrounding the Gowanus Canal and remains one of the finest buildings in the neighborhood recalling this history.” The prior occupant was the scupltor Mardig Kachian.

The sale was brokered by Robert Lawrence and DJ Johnston of Matthews Real Estate Investment Services. The property set up (170 Second Ave pdf) does not offer suggested uses for the building.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Cravath, Swaine & Moore registered had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Neo-Bauhaus Design Factory had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The industrial building in Gowanus has 13,968 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 50 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 5,000 square feet. The zoning is M2-1 which allows for up to 2 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing The property is in the Individual Landmark. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $941,000.

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

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 Gowanus, The bulk, or 46 percent of the 9.2 million square feet of commercial built space are industrial buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 19 percent of the space. In sales, Gowanus has 2.4 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $594.7 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 9th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Gowanus has 2.7 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 4th highest in Brooklyn. It had 3 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 33 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of six of the 11 commercial properties representing zero square feet of the 110,118 square feet. The identified owner is Two Trees Management.
On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 9,151 square feet. It is a 9,151 square-foot industrial (F-2) building submitted by Michael Khoo with plans filed September 27, 2022 and it has not been permitted yet.

All properties are industrial.

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