New July auction set for Nolitan Hotel with $35M judgment, earlier auction scrapped

A referee managing the foreclosure process of the Nolitan Hotel at 30 Kenmare Street in Nolita, Manhattan, scheduled an auction for July 23, 2025, for the building owned by Veracity Equities, led by Edmond Li. The date was disclosed in a notice of sale published in court records on Monday. This is the second auction scheduled for the property. The first, set for January 22, 2025, was cancelled after the parties signed a stipulation a week before the sale agreeing to postpone a sale until July 22, 2025, “in the event certain terms and conditions are satisfied.”

Case 850275/2021 LINK

Special Servicer LNR Partners filed the suit in 2021 in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, on behalf of bondholders of the 2016-C34 trust for a loan with an original principal of $24 million. Veracity Equities led by Edmond Li bought the parcel in 2006 for $5.3 million and he developed the building, with an alternate address of 153 Elizabeth Street, now occupied by the Nolitan Hotel.

Several Veracity Equities properties have been under the threat of foreclosure.

• COMM 2013-CCRE12 and LNR Partners filed a $5.7 million pre-foreclosure 850031/2023 on January 23, 2023, against Veracity Equities and Edmond Li at 111 Mercer Street.

• SERIES 2018- C44 filed a $41 million pre-foreclosure 1:22-cv-05855-JGK on July 08, 2022, against Edmond Li, Jennifer Li and Veracity Equities at 46 Prince Street, 31 Prince Street and 48 Spring Street.

• SERIES 2018-CD7 and Rialto Capital Advisors filed a $32 million pre-foreclosure 1:22-cv-05586-PAE on June 30, 2022, against Edmond Li, Jennifer Li and Veracity Equities at 29 Prince Street, 137 Thompson Street and 26 Prince Street.

• Morgan Stanley Capital I Trust 2019-L2 and Rialto Capital Advisors filed a $21 million pre-foreclosure 850100/2022 on May 10, 2022, against Edmond Li, Veracity Equities and Veracity Management at 406 Broome Street and 406 Broome Street.

• Wells Fargo Series 2016-C34 filed a $24 million pre-foreclosure 850275/2021 on December 15, 2021, against Veracity Equities and Edmond Li at 30 Kenmare Street.

The property

The hotel building in Nolita has 28,207 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 33 feet and is 94 feet deep with a total lot size of 3,825 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is C6-1 which allows for up to 6 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 3.44 times FAR for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $13.6 million.

Prior sales and revenue

This property was sold for $5.4 million on April 11, 2006.

The 28,207-square-foot property generated revenue of $4.2 million or $148 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

Development

Edmond Li of 153 Elizabeth Street, LLC. submitted a new building construction project for a 57-unit hotel (J-1) building at 30 Kenmare Street. The plan was filed on October 24, 2006 and was permitted on April 2, 2007. It calls for the construction of a 85-foot tall, nine-story building and was filed with the New York City Department of Buildings under job number 104586592. The project is described in the filing as: new 9-story hotel based on city planning approval cpc calendar #n110022zam.

For the tax lot building, it received its initial certificate of occupancy on July 23, 2012.

Violations and lawsuits

According to city public data, the property has received $4,580 in OATH penalties in the last year.

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months.

The neighborhood

In Nolita, The bulk, or 50 percent of the 3.1 million square feet of commercial built space are walkup buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 20 percent of the space. In sales, Nolita has near average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $99.3 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 36th highest in Manhattan. For development, Nolita has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 37th highest in Manhattan. It had 258,540 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 8 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 11 of the 25 commercial properties representing 143,385 square feet of the 317,551 square feet. The largest owner is Alleycorp, followed by Beatrice Aparo and then Bing Qiang Du. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The owner

The owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Edmond Li, head officer and Jason Austin, site manager. The business entity is 153 Elizabeth Street Llc.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 153 Elizabeth Street, PincusCo identified four commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those four items, three were sales above $5 million totaling $70.1 million. The most recent of the three was Hamilton Lane which bought the 28,112-square-foot, 46-unit rental (C7) on 384 Broome Street and three other properties for $49.7 million from RWN Real Estate Partners on March 7, 2025. One of those four items was a loan which Witnick Real Estate Partners borrowed $8.5 million from Societe Generale secured by the 12,000-square-foot, 27-unit rental (C7) on 200 Mott Street on May 22, 2025.

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