Lipa Engel pays $3.8M to Sugar Hill for 29-unit conversion in South Slope

UPDATED: Lipa Engel through the entity 1713 Equities LLC paid $3.8 million to Sugar Hill Capital Partners, through the entity 1713 8th Avenue Residences, LLC for the office building (O5) at 1713 8th Avenue in South Slope, Brooklyn. The expected use is to convert it to a 29-unit residential building.

On the lot, there is one active major alteration construction project, B01055195, for a 29-unit, 11,578 square-foot residential (J-2) building. The project was submitted by Lipa Engel and filed by Lipa Engel with plans filed July 11, 2024 and it has not been permitted yet.
The deal closed on August 29, 2024 and was recorded on September 19, 2024. The property has 12,000 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $317 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 seller bought the property on August 13, 2015, for $5.3 million. The signatory for Sugar Hill Capital Partners was Margaret Grossman. The signatory for Lipa Engel was Lipa Engel. The contract date was April 1, 2024. T30 Capital LLC was formed May 17, 2022, while Sugar Hill Capital Partners was formed 2009. Sugar Hill Capital Partners has discontinued the website, available here through the Internet Archives. Despite closing the website, a spokesperson for the company said in an email that, “Sugar Hill continues to exist to manage its portfolio of New York City assets and its name has not changed.”

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer Lipa Engel purchased one property in one transaction for a total of $2 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller T30 Capital had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The office building in South Slope has 12,000 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 5,008 square feet. The zoning is R5B which allows for up to 1.35 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1.7 million.

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 received $50 in OATH penalties in the last year.

The neighborhood

In South Slope, The bulk, or 47 percent of the 4.6 million square feet of commercial built space are walkup buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 21 percent of the space. In sales, South Slope has had very little sales volume relative to other neighborhoods with $206 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, South Slope has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 381,562 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 two of the nine commercial properties representing 18,311 square feet of the 58,294 square feet. The two identified owners are Superior Realty Group and Sugar Hill Capital Partners.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 27 percent of the 58,294 square feet of built space are specialty buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 27 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that T30 Capital owned at least 80 commercial properties with 1,569 residential units in New York City with 1,498,593 square feet and a city-determined market value of $184.1 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $142.3 million in debt, with top three lenders as Signature Bank, Citibank, and New York Community Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 55 percent of the 1,498,593 square feet of built space are walkup properties, with elevator properties next occupying 32 percent of the space. The bulk, or 69 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 31 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Lipa Engel owned at least one commercial property with four residential units in New York City with 7,905 square feet and a city-determined market value of $1.2 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio consists of at least a single mixed-use property. It is located in Bronx.

Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly reported that Sugar Hill Capital Partners had changed its name to T30 Capital. In fact, T30 Capital is a separate company former by some principals of Sugar Hill Capital Partners, but “Sugar Hill continues to exist to manage its portfolio of New York City assets and its name has not changed.”

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