Monarch Realty signs $11.5M refi for 3 walkups in Morningside Heights

Monarch Realty Holdings through the entity 184-188 Claremont Investors LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender First National Bank of Long Island valued at $11.5 million for three residential walkup properties including the midblock 16-unit residential walkup building at 188 Claremont Avenue in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, midblock 16-unit residential walkup building at 186 Claremont Avenue in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, and midblock 15-unit residential walkup building at 184 Claremont Avenue in Morningside Heights, Manhattan.
The deal closed on April 11, 2022 and was recorded on May 6, 2022. The prior lender was ConnectOne Bank which held debt that had an original loan amount of $12.2 million. The three properties have 41,100 square feet of built space and 31,160 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 72,240 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $279 and the price per buildable square foot is $159 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 Monarch Realty Holdings was Nilesh S. Shah. The signatory for First National Bank of Long Island was Jane F. Reed.

Because multiple properties have been transacted, some of the following sections will follow the property with the largest assessed value, which in this case, is the property on 188 Claremont Avenue.

Prior sales and revenue

The owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Nicolas Loizou, head officer and Peta-Gay Pearce, officer. The business entity is 184-188 Claremont Investors Llc. The three properties with a total of 41,100 square feet of built space generated revenue of $1.3 million per year or $32 per square foot.

The property

The 188 Claremont Avenue parcel has frontage of 40 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 4,000 square feet. The zoning is R8 which allows for up to 6.02 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $2.4 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the properties since September of 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the properties have received $625 in ECB penalties, five housing violations, and $1,725 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 Morningside Heights, the majority, or 60 percent of the 37.8 million square feet of commercial built space are specialty buildings, with residential elevator buildings next occupying 33 percent of the space. In sales, Morningside Heights has had very little sales volume relative to other neighborhoods with $164.9 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Morningside Heights has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 439,613 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 1 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On the tax block of 188 Claremont Avenue, PincusCo has identified the owners of six of the 26 commercial properties representing 206,689 square feet of the 893,698 square feet. The largest owner is Marina Chai Vasarhelyi, followed by Monarch Realty Holdings and then Columbia University. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

the majority, or 34 percent of the 1.1 million square feet of built space are residential elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 33 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Nilesh S. Shah owned at least one commercial property with 23,568 square feet and a city-determined market value of $6.4 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $9.5 million in debt, borrowed from First National Bank of Long Island. The portfolio consists of at least a single residential elevator property. It is located in Manhattan.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 188 Claremont Avenue, Pincusco identified four commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
One of those four items was a sale which Prana Investments bought the 43,173-square-foot, 62-unit rental (D1) on 183 Claremont Avenue for $15.8 million from BlackRock on August 11, 2020.
Of those four items, three were loans above $5 million totaling $31.3 million. The most recent of the three was Monarch Realty Holdings which borrowed $8.2 million from Sterling National Bank secured by the 25,412-square-foot, 31-unit rental (C7) on 3139 Broadway on December 14, 2021.

Correction: A prior version of this post identified Nilesh Shah as the buyer, when in fact the buyer is Monarch Realty Holdings. Shah is the controller at the firm.

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