Raymond Chan, Robert Huang, Moon Free Lee plan 50 units in Chelsea, bought site for $21.5M

Robert Shengchu Huang submitted a major alteration application for a conversion and expansion of a commercial (COM) building at 115 Seventh Avenue in Chelsea, Manhattan to a mixed-use building with 50 residential units and retail.

On December 22, 2023, Sun-Man Raymond Chan, Robert Shengchu Huang, and Moon Free Lee through the entity Chelsea 115 LLC paid $21.5 million to Argentic Investment Management through the entity Areit RE Holder LLC for the retail and office building (O6) at 115 Seventh Avenue in Chelsea, Manhattan. This is the retail and office building which Ashkenazy Acquisition bought in 2014 for $57 million and later lost to its lender Argentic Investment Management with the sharp decline in most retail values.

The plan was filed with the New York City Department of Buildings on January 5, 2024 under job number M00980151. It calls for the increase in size of the building from a seven-story building with no dwelling units to a 12-story building with 50 dwelling units. The project is described in the filing as: propose vertical enlargement of existing 7-story commercial building to a 12-story mixed-use building.

The plan calls for retail on the first floor, offices on the second and third floors and between four and six residential units on floors four to 12. The architect is Raymond Chan Architect.

The property

The office building in Chelsea has 42,380 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 52 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 5,295 square feet. The zoning is C6-3A which allows for up to 6 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 7.52 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $20.4 million.

Violations and lawsuits

According to city public data, the property has received five DOB violations, $35,975 in ECB penalties, and $38,575 in OATH penalties in the last year.

The neighborhood

In Chelsea, The bulk, or 36 percent of the 52.4 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 28 percent of the space. In sales, Chelsea has the 9th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.5 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Chelsea has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 15th highest in Manhattan. It had 2 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 4 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of three of the 19 commercial properties representing 116,546 square feet of the 349,200 square feet. The largest owner is Robert Shengchu Huang, followed by S.W. Management and then STG Realty Group. On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 9,157 square feet. It is a four-unit, 9,157 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Yaniv Garbo with plans filed December 11, 2018 and it has not been permitted yet.

The owner

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Sun-Man Raymond Chan owned at least two commercial properties in New York City with 45,980 square feet and a city-determined market value of $21 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 92 percent of the 45,980 square feet of built space are office properties, with retail properties next occupying 8 percent of the space. The bulk, or 92 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Queens next at 8 percent of the space.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 115 Seventh Avenue, PincusCo identified four commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those four items, two were sales above $5 million totaling $25.8 million. The most recent of the two was Mcbix LLC which bought one condo unit in the 2,405-square-foot, 55-unit mixed-use building (RM) on 210 West 18th Street for $11.6 million from Keylead Limited on April 26, 2023. Of those four items, two were loans above $5 million totaling $11.5 million. The most recent of the two was Itzhaki Acquisitions in which borrowed $6.3 million from Signature Bank secured by the 10,872-square-foot, 22-unit rental (C4) on 208 West 17th Street on October 13, 2022.

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