Neue Urban pays $3.3M for 5-unit walkup in Greenpoint

Neue Urban through the entity 248 Driggs LLC paid $3.3 million to Steven Noto through the entity First Driggs Ave LLC for five-unit residential walkup building (C2) at 248 Driggs Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on June 30, 2022 and was recorded on July 13, 2022. The property has 4,650 square feet of built space and 1,196 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 5,838 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $715 and the price per buildable square foot is $569 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 Steven Noto was Steven Noto. The signatory for Neue Urban was Zachary Ehrlich. Zachary Ehrlich is a managing partner of Neue Urban.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has records that the buyer Neue Urban purchased one property in one transaction for a total of $5.4 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Steven Noto had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Andrew Roth, head officer and Keith Balis, officer. The business entity is First Driggs Ave Llc.

The property

The 248 Driggs Avenue parcel has frontage of 25 feet and is 113 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,919 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 $1.9 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 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 Greenpoint, the bulk, or 28 percent of the 24.2 million square feet of commercial built space are residential walkup buildings, with industrial buildings next occupying 26 percent of the space. In sales, Greenpoint has 1.9 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $619.6 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 5th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Greenpoint has 3.6 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 4th highest in Brooklyn. It had 3.7 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. There were two pre-foreclosure suit filed among other residential walkup buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 19 of the 26 commercial properties representing 88,165 square feet of the 106,065 square feet. The largest owner is Janina Vescur, followed by Bogdan Bachorowski and then Richard Baginski. There are two active new building construction projects totaling 23,282 square feet. The largest is a six-unit, 4,987-square-foot R-2 building developed by Tin See Fung with plans filed June 9, 2017 and permitted April 25, 2019. The second largest is a 27-unit, 18,295-square-foot R-2 building developed by Krzysztof Rostek with plans filed April 10, 2020 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 58 percent of the 106,065 square feet of built space are residential walkup buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 42 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Neue Urban owned at least one commercial property in New York City with 9,078 square feet and a city-determined market value of $1.1 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio consists of at least a single walkup property. It is located in Brooklyn.

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