Moses Karpen, Moses Lefkowitz pays $6.5M for retail in Clinton Hill

Moses Karpen and Moses Lefkowitz through the entity Clinton Garden Partners LLC paid $6.5 million to Christopher K. Sowers through the entity 899 Fulton LLC for mixed-use retail building (K2) at 899 Fulton Street in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on July 6, 2022 and was recorded on July 21, 2022. The property has 6,353 square feet of built space and 6,354 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 12,708 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,023 and the price per buildable square foot is $511 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 signatory for Christopher K. Sowers was Christopher K. Sowers. The signatory for Moses Karpen and Moses Lefkowitz was Moses Karpen and Moses Lefkowitz.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Moses Karpen had purchased any other properties and sold three properties in three transactions for a total of $9.2 million over the past 24 months.
The seller Christopher K. Sowers had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The 6,353-square-foot property generated revenue of $353,862 or $56 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 899 Fulton Street parcel has frontage of 54 feet and is 109 feet deep with a total lot size of 3,177 square feet. The zoning is R7A which allows for up to 4 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1.8 million.

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 received $1,350 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 $5 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Clinton Hill, the bulk, or 31 percent of the 10.3 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 18 percent of the space. In sales, Clinton Hill has near average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $314.7 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 17th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Clinton Hill has 1.3 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 16th highest in Brooklyn. It had 1.3 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 13 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other mixed-use buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of one of the seven commercial properties representing 12,240 square feet of the 103,068 square feet. The identified owner is Oak Tree Residential. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 74 percent of the 103,068 square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 14 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Moses Karpen owned at least 20 commercial properties in New York City with 180,469 square feet and a city-determined market value of $34.6 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $41.3 million in debt, with top three lenders as Arbor Realty Trust, Bank of Princeton, and Valley National Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 56 percent of the 180,469 square feet of built space are walkup properties, with elevator properties next occupying 37 percent of the space. The bulk, or 97 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Queens next at 3 percent of the space.

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