Oculus Realty, Firebird Grove pay $9.6M for 22-unit walkup in Williamsburg

Oculus Realty and Firebird Grove OR 155 South 2nd, LLC paid $9.6 million to Chany Jacobowitz’s J Tower LLC for the midblock 22-unit residential walkup building at 155 South 2nd Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on May 12, 2022 and was recorded on June 27, 2022. The property has 17,916 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $535 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.)

Prior sales and revenue

The former owner according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development is Max Jacobs, head officer. The business entity is J Tower Llc. The 17,916-square-foot property generated revenue of $599,828 or $33 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 155 South 2nd Street parcel has frontage of 37 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 3,750 square feet. The zoning is R6 which allows for up to 2.43 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $2.8 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 received $300 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 Williamsburg, the bulk, or 35 percent of the 65.1 million square feet of commercial built space are residential elevator buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 19 percent of the space. In sales, Williamsburg has the 9th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.4 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Williamsburg is the 6th most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 5.1 million 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. There were eight 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 four of the 16 commercial properties representing 58,259 square feet of the 102,588 square feet. The largest owner is Adam J. Semler, followed by Max Jacobs and then Miguel Santiago. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

the majority, or 51 percent of the 148,710 square feet of built space are residential walkup buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 18 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 155 South 2nd Street, Pincusco identified six commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
One of those six items was a sale which Adam J. Semler bought the 16,313-square-foot, 23-unit rental (C7) on 159 South 2nd Street for $6.6 million from Michael Vaglica on January 12, 2022.
Of those six items, five were loans above $5 million totaling $48.8 million. The most recent of the five was Mendel Jacobowitz which borrowed $10.5 million from Webster Bank secured by the 17,152-square-foot, eight-unit rental (C4) on 163 South 1st Street and two other properties on February 16, 2022.

Correction: A prior version of this story incorrectly identified the name as Firebird Capital, when in fact the name is Firebird Grove.

Direct link to Acris document. link