Maverick acquires in auction Thor’s Meatpacking retail with $27M judgment

Maverick Real Estate Partners through the entity Meatpacking Retail LLC acquired Thor Equities’ retail building at 446 West 14th Street in the Meatpacking District that had a $27 million judgment, through a foreclosure auction held on July 17, 2024, but only disclosed in court records last week. The transfer has not yet been recorded in city property records.

The referee report of sale was dated November 8, 2024, and published November 14, 2024.

Case 850017/2023 LINK

In a similar action, Maverick Real Estate Partners acquired four Steven Croman Kips Bay apartments with a $43 million judgment through an auction held last week.

The foreclosure auction for the building that Joseph Sitt’s Thor Equities bought in 2007 for $23.4 million was held on July 17, 2024, 18 months after Maverick Real Estate Partners, a lender and active loan buyer, bought the defaulted note in November 2022 from an affiliate of Granite Point Mortgage Trust, and in January 2023 filed the pre-foreclosure action.

In January 2024, Manhattan State Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Schechter signed an order approving the foreclosure sale of the building. The referee Julian White in a December 2023 court filing, set the total judgment at the time at $24.7 million.

The property

The retail building in Meatpacking District has 15,428 square feet of built space and 10,375 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 25,810 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 50 feet and is 103 feet deep with a total lot size of 5,162 square feet. The zoning is M1-5 which allows for up to 5 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing. The property is in the Gansevoort Market Historic District. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $7.7 million. The most recent loan totaled 0.0 and was provided by Maverick Real Estate Partners on November 9, 2022.

Prior sales and revenue

This property was sold for $23.4 million on March 23, 2007.

The 15,428-square-foot property generated revenue of $1.4 million or $93 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The neighborhood

In Meatpacking District, The bulk, or 26 percent of the 2 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with retail buildings next occupying 26 percent of the space. In sales, Meatpacking District has near average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $80.2 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 37th highest in Manhattan. For development, Meatpacking District has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 41st highest in Manhattan. It had 79,888 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 4 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 451,188 square feet of the 614,655 square feet. The largest owner is Aurora Capital Associates, followed by M. Meilman Realty And Consulting and then RFR Holding. On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 117,657 square feet. It is a 117,657 square-foot business (B) building submitted by Aurora Capital Associates|William Gottlieb Real Estate and filed by Matthew Abreu with plans filed October 29, 2015 and permitted April 18, 2017.

The owner

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Thor Equities owned at least 24 commercial properties with 346 residential units in New York City with 836,714 square feet and a city-determined market value of $200.4 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $306.8 million in debt, with top three lenders as MetLife, Athene Holding, and Prime Finance respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 47 percent of the 836,714 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with industrial properties next occupying 18 percent of the space. The bulk, or 58 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 42 percent of the space.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 448 West 14 Street, PincusCo identified four commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those four items, two were sales above $5 million totaling $34.4 million. The most recent of the two was MacArthur Holdings which bought one condo unit in the 11,166-square-foot, four-unit mixed-use building (RC) on 415 West 13thstreet for $11.9 million from Series 2016-JP3 on October 3, 2023. Of those four items, two were loans above $5 million totaling $58.3 million. The most recent of the two was CB Developers in which borrowed $48.3 million from Bank of America secured by two condo units in the 58,559-square-foot, two-unit office building (RB) on 450 West 14th Street on December 21, 2023.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page and link to DOB NOW portal.