Northwind Group sells office building in SoHo for $14.8M

An entity in care of Astral Properties, Rincon Series A LLC, paid $14.8 million to Northwind Group through the entity 40 Wooster Member LLC for the office building (O5) at 40 Wooster Street in SoHo, Manhattan.
The deal closed on September 28, 2023 and was recorded on October 13, 2023. The property has 14,125 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,044 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 seller bought the property on April 11, 2014, for $16.4 million. The signatory for Northwind Group was Ran Eliasaf. The contract date was May 30, 2023.
The founder of Astral Properties, Andy Golubitsky, declined to comment.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that an affiliate of Astral Properties had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months. The company website identifies five modest multifamily properties it its portfolio.
The seller Northwind Group had not purchased any other properties and sold 13 properties for a total of $756.3 million over the same time period.

The property

The office building in SoHo has 14,125 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 25 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,499 square feet. The zoning is M1-5/R7X which allows for up to 5 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing and up to 5 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The property is in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $5.5 million. The most recent loan totaled $10.9 million and was provided by Ladder Capital on November 14, 2019.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received $4,105 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

On the lot, there is one active major alteration construction project for a four-unit, 13,403 square-foot R-2 building. The project was submitted by Ran Eliasaf with plans filed August 7, 2014 and it has not been permitted yet.

The neighborhood

In SoHo, The bulk, or 46 percent of the 9.5 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 14 percent of the space. In sales, SoHo has 1.9 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $692.2 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 20th highest in Manhattan. For development, SoHo has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 303,357 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 3 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of seven of the 19 commercial properties representing 53,143 square feet of the 154,496 square feet. The largest owner is Zucker Organization, followed by Northwind Group and then Hyong S. Kim.
On the tax block, there were two new building construction projects totaling 24,997 square feet. The largest is a 12,499 square-foot business (B) building submitted by Uri Omari with plans filed December 2, 2019 and it has not been permitted yet. The second largest is a four-unit, 12,498 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Benjamin Gordon with plans filed April 20, 2012 and permitted November 19, 2013.

The majority, or 35 percent of the 154,496 square feet of built space are retail buildings, with office buildings next occupying 19 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Northwind Group owned at least one commercial property in New York City with 14,125 square feet and a city-determined market value of $5.5 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $10.9 million in debt, borrowed from Ladder Capital. The portfolio consists of at least a single office property. It is located in Manhattan.

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