Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute signs $8.2M refi for theater in Gramercy

The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute through the entity LSASAD, LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender RGA Reinsurance Company valued at $8.2 million for the midblock theater building at 113-115 East 15th Street in Gramercy, Manhattan.
The deal closed on November 5, 2021 and was recorded on April 1, 2022. The prior lender was RGA Reinsurance Company which held debt that had an original loan amount of $7.2 million.

The property has 15,409 square feet of built space and 15,695 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 31,081 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $532 and the price per buildable square foot is $264 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 Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute was Anna Strasberg. The signatory for RGA Reinsurance Company was Chris Dolan.

The property

The 113-115 East 15th Street parcel has frontage of 50 feet and is 103 feet deep with a total lot size of 5,163 square feet. The zoning is C6-2A which allows for up to 6 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 6.02 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $2.8 million.The most recent loan totaled $7.2 million and was provided by RGA Reinsurance Company on June 1, 2020.

Violations and lawsuits

The property was not involved in any lawsuits or bankruptcies in the past years. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received $400 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 Gramercy, the bulk, or 46 percent of the 16.4 million square feet of commercial built space are residential elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 19 percent of the space. In sales, Gramercy has had very little sales volume relative to other neighborhoods with $125.7 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Gramercy has 1.4 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 17th highest in Manhattan. It had 1.3 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 8 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of three of the 20 commercial properties representing 188,934 square feet of the 663,960 square feet. The largest owner is Christy Martin, followed by Croman Real Estate and then Lee Strasberg Theatrical Institute. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 44 percent of the 1.1 million square feet of built space are office buildings, with residential elevator buildings next occupying 34 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 113-115 East 15th Street, PincusCo identified five commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those five items, one was for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. It was an initial temporary certificate of occupancy issued on October 16, 2020 for the $5 million renovation of 23,481-square-foot A-2 building with no residential units at 17 Irving Place.
Of those five items, four were loans above $5 million totaling $107 million. The most recent of the four was Gould Investors which borrowed $45 million from AIG secured by the 288,402-square-foot, one-unit office building (O3) on 35 Irving Place on September 7, 2021.

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