Luba Vainer pays $5.2M to Josephine Tsarnas for commercial in South Slope

Luba Vainer through the entity Sweet 16 Equities LLC paid $5.2 million to Josephine Tsarnas through the entity Grekam Realty Management, Inc. for the midblock commercial building at 220 16th Street in South Slope, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on April 14, 2022 and was recorded on May 9, 2022. The property has 8,930 square feet of built space and 24,060 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 32,960 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $584 and the price per buildable square foot is $158 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 April 24, 2014, for $1.8 million. The signatory for Josephine Tsarnas was Josephine Tsarnas. The signatory for Luba Vainer was Luba Vainer.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has no record that the buyer Luba Vainer had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Josephine Tsarnas had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The 8,930-square-foot property generated revenue of $226,219 or $25 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 220 16th Street parcel has frontage of 22 feet and is 157 feet deep with a total lot size of 16,480 square feet. The zoning is R6B which allows for up to 2 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $660,000.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property since September of 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the property has not received any significant violations in the last year.

Development

There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $5 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In South Slope, the bulk, or 42 percent of the 9.4 million square feet of commercial built space are 1-4 family buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 23 percent of the space. In sales, South Slope has 1.2 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $322.9 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 13th highest in Brooklyn. For development, South Slope has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 91,369 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 0.98 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other industrial buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 10 of the 30 commercial properties representing 43,588 square feet of the 149,152 square feet. The largest owner is John Scarpinito, followed by Angelo Rigas and then Gowanus Cubes, LLC. There are two active new building construction projects totaling 166,722 square feet. The largest is a 147-unit, 160,747-square-foot R-2 building developed by George Rigas with plans filed January 27, 2022 and it has not been permitted yet.The second largest is a three-unit, 5,975-square-foot R-2 building developed by Robert Saffayeh with plans filed December 8, 2021 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 27 percent of the 272,874 square feet of built space are specialty buildings, with 1-4 family buildings next occupying 19 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 220 16th Street, PincusCo identified four commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those four items, one was in new building development. It was a new building permit application filed on January 27, 2022 for a 140,420-square-foot R-2 building with 147 residential units at 263 Prospect Avenue.
Of those four items, two were sales above $5 million totaling $30 million. The most recent of the two was Angelo Rigas which bought the 1,444-square-foot, one-unit townhouse (A9) on 188 16th Street and nine other properties for $22.5 million from Alice Halkias on July 14, 2021.
One of those four items was a loan which Trident Developers borrowed $6.4 million from Investors Bank secured by the 32,719-square-foot, 27-unit rental (D9) on 593 6th Avenue on March 17, 2022.

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