Long-time owner signs $8M refi with Symetra for office building on Park Avenue South

Catherine Nelson Brown of Brown Companies through the entity Gammon Enterprises, LLC as borrower signed a loan with lender Symetra Life Insurance Company valued at $8 million for the office building (O6) at 461 Park Avenue South in Park Avenue South, Manhattan.
The deal closed on April 11, 2024 and was recorded on April 29, 2024. The property has 54,018 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $148 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.)
Catherine Nelson Brown bought out another family member in a transaction related to a 50 percent stake in the property on May 26, 2020, with a value for the purpose of taxes of $34.4 million.

Catherine Nelson Brown married and later divorced the late Harry Joe Brown Jr. a developer who died in 2005. Harry Brown had an interest in the building going back at least to the 1980s.

The property

The parcel has frontage of 35 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 4,224 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is C6-4A which allows for up to 10 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 10 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $10.8 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 $1,380 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 $1 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Park Avenue South, The majority, or 67 percent of the 9 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 16 percent of the space. In sales, Park Avenue South has near average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $245.7 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 28th highest in Manhattan. For development, Park Avenue South has 1.2 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 25th 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 15 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of eight of the 16 commercial properties representing 1,665,923 square feet of the 1,774,400 square feet. The largest owner is Alrose Group, followed by Cohen Brothers Realty and then Gorjian Real Estate Group.
On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 27,219 square feet. It is a 27,219 square-foot business (B) building submitted by Woo Sung Lee with plans filed November 28, 2012 and permitted December 12, 2018.

The majority, or 55 percent of the 1.8 million square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with office buildings next occupying 37 percent of the space.

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