Republic Investment signs $10.3M refi for 68-unit elevator building in Washington Heights

Republic Investment Company through the entity Bmw Group, LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender New York Community Bank through the entity New York Community Bank valued at $10.3 million for the 68-unit residential elevator building at 201 Wadsworth Avenue in Washington Heights, Manhattan.
The deal closed on February 25, 2022 and was recorded on March 8, 2022. The prior lender was Capital One which held debt that had an original loan amount of $10 million. The property has 72,822 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $141 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 owner bought the property on April 1, 2008, for $8.5 million. The signatory for Republic Investment Company was Joseph Nehmadi. The signatory for New York Community Bank was Daniel M. Bagatta. Republic Investment Company was founded by Ben Nehmadi and is located at the same location as the owner LLC.

Prior sales and revenue

The owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Joseph Nehmadi, head officer and Doron Yaghoubi, officer. The business entity is Bmw Group, Llc.

The property

The 201 Wadsworth Avenue parcel has frontage of 74 feet and is 200 feet deep with a total lot size of 14,822 square feet. The zoning is R7-2 which allows for up to 3.44 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $5.2 million.The property has a city-determined energy rating of 54 out of 100.

Violations and lawsuits

The property was not involved in any lawsuits or bankruptcies in the past years. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received one DOB violation, seven housing violations, and $50 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

For the tax block buildings, one out of the three buildings received an initial certificate of occupancy in the last ten years. 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 Washington Heights, the bulk, or 49 percent of the 78 million square feet of built space are residential elevator buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 23 percent of the space. In sales, Washington Heights has 1.3 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $366.7 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 24th highest in Manhattan. For development, Washington Heights has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 19th highest in Manhattan. It had 1 million 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.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 10 of the 27 commercial properties representing 309,904 square feet of the 639,098 square feet. The largest owner is Merchants’ National Properties, followed by Elysee Investment Company and then Sol Goldman Investments. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

the majority, or 34 percent of the 567,862 square feet of built space are residential walkup buildings, with residential elevator buildings next occupying 30 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 201 Wadsworth Avenue, Pincusco identified five commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those five items, one was for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. It was an initial temporary certificate of occupancy issued on April 17, 2020 for the $400,000 renovation of 5,000-square-foot A-2 building with 54 residential units at 4300 Broadway.
Of those five items, four were loans above $5 million totaling $32.2 million. The most recent of the four was Tri-Hill Mangement which borrowed $5.2 million from Signature Bank secured by the 24,870-square-foot, 20-unit rental (C7) on 1471 St Nicholas Avenue on January 4, 2022.

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