New 8-unit building filed on Chinatown parcel affiliated with Filipino billionaire

Medel Payumo of 11 Essex Street Realty LLC submitted a new building construction project for an eight-unit, 12,799 square-foot residential (R-2) building at 11 Essex Street in Chinatown, Manhattan. The plan was filed on October 5, 2022. It calls for the construction of a 105-foot-tall, nine-story building and was filed with the New York City Department of Buildings under job number M08014320. The architect is Workshop Design+Architecture, PLL. The project is described in the filing as: erect new residential building.

The entity 11 Essex Street Realty LLC bought the property in 2017 for $11.4 million. The buyer signatory was Felicia P. Razon, as manager. A $296 million lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan last year over a terminated casino management deal in the Philippines alleges this building is owned by Enrique Razon Jr., the Filipino billionaire shipping and casino owner.

The building plan shows retail on the ground floor and one apartment per floor from the second to the ninth floor.

The property

The 11 Essex Street parcel has frontage of 25 feet and is 87 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,188 square feet. The zoning is C6-2 which allows for up to 6 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 6.02 times FAR for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $380,000.

Development

Over the past five years, there have been five NYC Department of Buildings permit applications filed for this parcel valued at more than $20,000. There were four renovation/alteration projects (A2) applied for with a total estimated value of $5,003. There has been one demolition project filed for the parcels over the past five years. The demolition included 22 residential units.

Violations and lawsuits

According to city public data, the property has not received any significant violations in the last year.

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property since September of 2020.

The neighborhood

In Chinatown, the bulk, or 35 percent of the 8.5 million square feet of commercial built space are walkup buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 17 percent of the space. In sales, Chinatown has near average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $138.7 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 36th highest in Manhattan. For development, Chinatown has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 30th highest in Manhattan. It had 494,107 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 6 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of one of the 21 commercial properties representing 21,162 square feet of the 175,340 square feet. On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 12,799 square feet. It is a eight-unit, 12,799 square-foot R-2 building developed by Medel Payumo with plans filed October 5, 2022 and it has not been permitted yet.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 11 Essex 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 October 22, 2021 for a 14,801-square-foot R-2 building with 10 residential units at 24 Orchard Street. One of those four items was a sale which NNYY LLC bought the 4,179-square-foot, two-unit mixed-use building (K4) on 24 Orchard Street for $6.7 million from Si Hyun Ok on November 16, 2020. Of those four items, two were loans above $5 million totaling $15.2 million. The most recent of the two was Icon Realty Management which borrowed $7.6 million from BCB Community Bank secured by the 14,898-square-foot, 24-unit rental (C7) on 61 Hester Street on August 4, 2022.

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