Republic Investment pays $15.6M to Meadow for Renwick ground lease, was $44.8M in 2014

Republic Investment Company paid $15.6 million to Meadow Partners for the leasehold on the The Renwick, a mid-block hotel building at 118 East 40th Street in Grand Central, Manhattan.

The deal closed on April 11, 2022 and was recorded on May 6, 2022. Meadow as tenant signed a 99-year ground lease in 2014 valued at $44.8 million. The fee is owned by a group of individuals including William Rand Jr., Andre Jagendorf, Ruth Alpert, and others. 

Justin Adelipour was the signatory for Republic Investment Company, through the entity RC Renwick LLC. Timothy Yantz signed for Meadow Partners through the entity MP Bedford Property LLC.

Maxim Credit Group provided $15.5 million in acquisition funding for Republic Investment Company.

The property has 74,640 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data.

The sale price per built square foot is $208 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 sale price is low because it’s a ground lease.

Meadow Partners did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Prior sales and revenue

The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Gregory Blake, head officer and John Ozturk, agent. The business entities are Meadow Partners and Mp Bedford- Wcr Llc.

The property

The 118 East 40th Street parcel has frontage of 60 feet and is 98 feet deep with a total lot size of 5,925 square feet. The zoning is C5-3 which allows for up to 15 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 10 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $19.1 million.

Violations and lawsuits

The property was involved in two lawsuits and zero bankruptcies over the past two years. The highest value suit was a $46.3 million commercial foreclosure concerning a loan filed on December 16, 2020, by Heitman Credit Acquisition against Meadow Partners. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received two DOB violations in the last year.

Development

For the tax lot building, it received its initial certificate of occupancy on March 9, 2016. 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 Grand Central, the majority, or 74 percent of the 47.4 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with residential elevator buildings next occupying 11 percent of the space. In sales, Grand Central has the highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $2.4 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Grand Central has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 557,614 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. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other hotel buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of five of the 68 commercial properties representing 85,822 square feet of the 1,597,825 square feet. The largest owner is Sol Goldman Investments, followed by AD Real Estate Investors and then Steven Tatti. There are two active new building construction projects totaling 42,209 square feet. The largest is a 16-unit, 21,903-square-foot R-2 building developed by Adam Gordon with plans filed January 30, 2020 and it has not been permitted yet. The second largest is a 40-unit, 20,306-square-foot R-1 building developed by Terence Cheng with plans filed October 10, 2017 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 71 percent of the 1.7 million square feet of built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 15 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 118 East 40th Street, PincusCo identified six commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those six items, two were for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. They were one permit applications with a total initial cost of $4.8 million and one permit with a total initial cost of $431,550. The most recent of these two items was the filing on February 22, 2022 for a 28,021-square-foot B building with zero residential units at 100 Park Avenue.
Of those six items, two were sales above $5 million totaling $12.3 million. The most recent of the two was Slawomir Platta which bought the 4,972-square-foot, two-unit mixed-use building (S1) on 119 East 38th Street for $6.5 million from Norman Alshooler on July 16, 2021.
Of those six items, two were loans above $5 million totaling $26.3 million. The most recent of the two was AD Real Estate Investors which borrowed $20.3 million from Valley National Bank secured by the 26,178-square-foot, 37-unit rental (D6) on 114 East 40th Street on February 25, 2022.

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