Phipps Houses pays $3.8M to Estate of Rita Stark for six lots in Far Rockaway, part of series of purchases

Phipps Houses through the entity Rockaway Village II Housing Development Fund Corp. paid $3.8 million to Estate of Rita Stark through the entity Mott Center, LLC for property at 17-01 Village Lane and property at 17-25 Village Lane in Far Rockaway, Queens. This is a part of a series of purchases Phipps Houses has made from the estate of Rita Stark to develop affordable housing.
The deal closed on December 13, 2022 and was recorded on December 29, 2022. The six properties have zero square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data.
The signatory for Estate of Rita Stark was Elizabeth Farrell. The signatory for Phipps Houses was Matthew Kelly.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer Phipps Houses purchased 14 properties in seven transactions for a total of $55.5 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Estate of Rita Stark had not purchased any other properties and sold seven properties in three transactions for a total of $66.3 million over the same time period.

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 not received any significant violations 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 block

On the tax block of 17-01 Village Lane, PincusCo has identified the owners of 19 of the 33 commercial properties representing 90,106 square feet of the 424,261 square feet. The largest owner is Pillar Property Management, followed by Phipps Houses and then Devandra Parasram.
On the tax block, there were nine new building construction projects totaling 7,472,098 square feet. The largest is a 354-unit building developed by Phipps Houses with plans filed May 8, 2020 and permitted February 17, 2021. The second largest is a 55-unit building developed by Phipps Houses with plans filed May 8, 2020 and permitted March 17, 2022.

The majority, or 60 percent of the 424,261 square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with office buildings next occupying 28 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Phipps Houses owned at least 91 commercial properties in New York City with 5,635,105 square feet and a city-determined market value of $436.3 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $1 billion in debt, with top three lenders as NYC Housing Development Corporation, Citibank, and City of New York respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 78 percent of the 5,635,105 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with walkup properties next occupying 16 percent of the space. The bulk, or 50 percent of the built space, is in Bronx, with Manhattan next at 35 percent of the space.

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