Long-time owners were sellers last week: Fetner, Feil, Ciampa, Lemle

By Adam Pincus

The most interesting thing about last week’s transactions was not the buyers. It was the sellers. Multigenerational real estate dynasties, that typically hold and rarely part, comprised an unusually large coterie of sellers. But that was not all, banned multifamily owner Raphael Toledano also sold a walkup, and court filings show he has another he can sell.

The biggest seller in terms of dollars was Hal Fetner’s Fetner Properties, which is a multi-generational, family-led development firm. It sold controlling stakes in several rental buildings including 561 10th Avenue to Empire State Realty Trust. Fetner owns stakes in a handful of properties, including a large development site on West 96th Street.

Another family firm in the sales column was the Queens-based Ciampa Organization, which according to PincusCo data owns approximately 50 properties with about 2 million square feet of commercial and multifamily that include about 1,700 residential units. All its New York City assets are in Queens. What did it sell?  It parted with two industrial parcels in Long Island City, which are development sites for developer Bentley Zhao of New Empire Corp.

Another long-time owner turned seller was the Feil Organization, which sold a residential building in Queens to A&E Real Estate Holdings for $15 million. PincusCo calculates Feil owns just under 8 million square feet of space in the city, contained in just over 50 buildings, both residential and commercial that have about 1,700 rental units.

Another seller was one branch of a multigenerational real estate family with several independent ownership companies, the Lemles. This branch sold three walkups to L3C Capital for $24.2 million. 

There were also two interesting sellers who were not multigenerational. One was developer Miki Naftali’s Naftali Group, which sold several development sites and rental buildings to Tryline Capital. 

There was also an interesting sale by Raphael Toledano, whom the New York State Attorney General Letitia James earlier this year banned for five years from engaging in new real estate deals. Toledano sold a Carroll Gardens walkup for $4.7 million that was recorded last week. Toledano’s got at least one more property under his name, which is 305 Martense Street in Flatbush, Brooklyn, a 28-unit walkup building.