LENY Group seeks quick sale of Williamsburg rental through $80M bankruptcy, Eastdil to broker

The Israel-based LENY Group, led by Rudy Gabsi, filed its second bankruptcy this year at the 40-unit rental property 190 Berry Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This new filing by the owner entity LENY Berry Holdings LLC, is to facilitate a quick sale of the property with an anticipated auction on September 4, and a closing date of September 9. (bid procedures pdf)

LENY Group filed the petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Brooklyn on July 17, leaving just over seven weeks to complete the sale. The plaintiff picked the capital advisory firm Eastdil Secured to market the property and lead the sale.

Case 1-24-42947-nhl LINK

The property owner and the lender, WF CREL 2020 Grantor Trust, an affiliate of Waterfall Asset Management, are working through an agreement to sell the property. The property is subject to an $80.3 million senior secured debt. At the time of the filing there was no stalking horse bidder but the lender has all rights as credit bidder.

In the first bankruptcy, the LENY Group sought the court’s protection for the 101,358-square-foot,  mixed-use loft building, as PincusCo reported at the time, to halt a UCC sale scheduled for April 4, 2024, tied to a default in $69.8 million of senior debt. It filed the petition through the entity LENY Berry Mezz LLC in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Brooklyn.

The property

The elevator building with 40 residential units in Williamsburg has 101,358 square feet of built space and 8,032 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 109,530 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has six buildings with frontage of 225 feet and is 162 feet deep with a total lot size of 36,510 square feet. The zoning is M1-2/R6A which allows for up to 2 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing and up to 3 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $23.3 million.

Prior sales and revenue

This property was sold with another property for $92.2 million on April 30, 2015.

The 101,358-square-foot property generated revenue of $3 million or $30 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The neighborhood

In Williamsburg, The bulk, or 39 percent of the 50.4 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 25 percent of the space. In sales, Williamsburg has the 5th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $2.1 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Williamsburg has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 2nd highest in Brooklyn. It had 4.5 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 9 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 188 Berry Street, PincusCo identified seven commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those seven items, two were sales above $5 million totaling $21.8 million. The most recent of the two was Creas Inc. which bought the 6,500-square-foot, eight-unit rental (C1) on 117 North 4th Street for $9.8 million from Wharton Properties on September 22, 2023. Of those seven items, five were loans above $5 million totaling $183.7 million. The most recent of the five was Hudson Companies in which borrowed $28.2 million from Voya Investment Management secured by five condo units in the 41,387-square-foot, 78-unit mixed-use building (RM) on 94 North 3rd Street on December 4, 2023.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page and link to DOB NOW portal.