Liberty One Group pays $3.7M to expand dev site in Elmhurst

Liberty One Group through the entity 7801 51st Owner LLC paid $3.7 million to Nicholas Protopapas and Emmanuel Mastromihalis for the industrial building (G2) at 78-01 51st Avenue in Elmhurst, Queens, adjacent to a school development site it already owns which was part of a $23.1 million purchase in 2014.

On the adjacent site, Danny Turkel of Liberty One Group submitted a new building construction project for a five-story, 49,058 square-foot school building at 78-07 51st Avenue. The project forms an L around 78-01 51st Avenue. The plan was filed on August 29, 2024. It calls for the construction of a 74-foot tall, five-story building and was filed with the New York City Department of Buildings under job number Q01102928. The architect is Imc Architecture DPC. The project is described in the filing as: proposed five story new building school.

The new sale closed on September 30, 2025 and was recorded on October 8, 2025. The property has 3,000 square feet of built space and 6,815 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 9,800 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,233 and the price per buildable square foot is $377 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 Nicholas Protopapas and Emmanuel Mastromihalis was Nicholas Protopapas and Emmanuel Mastromihalis. The signatory for Liberty One Group was David Levitan . The contract date was May 6, 2025.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer Liberty One Group purchased seven properties in six transactions for a total of $99.3 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Nicholas Protopapas had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The 3,000-square-foot property generated revenue of $75,660 or $25 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The industrial building in Elmhurst has 3,000 square feet of built space and 6,815 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 9,800 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 42 feet and is 107 feet deep with a total lot size of 4,033 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is C4-2 which allows for up to 3.4 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 2.43 times FAR for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $426,000.

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.

The neighborhood

In Elmhurst, The bulk, or 40 percent of the 19.8 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 21 percent of the space. In sales, Elmhurst has near average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $264.4 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 8th highest in Queens. For development, Elmhurst has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 613,712 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 3 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of four of the five commercial properties representing 128,066 square feet of the 131,066 square feet. The largest owner is David Levitan, followed by Steven Berger and then Forte Preparatory Academy.
On the tax block, there were two new building construction projects totaling 98,489 square feet. The largest is a 49,431 square-foot 57 building submitted by Chris Karalis and filed by Chris Karalis with plans filed March 15, 2024 and permitted June 12, 2024. The second largest is a 49,058 square-foot 57 building submitted by Liberty One Group and filed by Danny Turkel with plans filed August 29, 2024 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 67 percent of the 131,066 square feet of built space are hotel buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 31 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Liberty One Group owned at least 16 commercial properties with 227 residential units in New York City with 502,534 square feet and a city-determined market value of $82.7 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $147.3 million in debt, with top three lenders as Popular Bank, Signature Bank, and Tristate Capital Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 29 percent of the 502,534 square feet of built space are hotel properties, with walkup properties next occupying 26 percent of the space. The bulk, or 36 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Queens next at 27 percent of the space.

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