Republic of Serbia pays $7.9M to Collectors Club for landmarked townhouse in Grand Central

The Republic of Serbia paid $7.9 million to the Collectors Club through the entity The Collectors Club for the specialty building (P5) at 22 East 35th Street in Grand Central, Manhattan. The property is a city landmark.
The deal closed on November 15, 2022 and was recorded on January 3, 2023. The property has 7,491 square feet of built space and 10,305 square feet of additional air rights according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,054. 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 club retained any excess development rights, so the buyer has no rights beyond the existing square feet of the building.
The signatory for Collectors Club was James Gray. The signatory for Republic of Serbia was Nemanja Stevanovic. The Collectors Club, a group for the study of stamps, acquired the property in 1937. The building was landmarked in 1979.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Republic of Serbia had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Collectors Club had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The 22 East 35th Street parcel has frontage of 20 feet and is 98 feet deep with a total lot size of 1,978 square feet. The zoning is R9X which allows for up to 9 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1.5 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 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 neighborhood

In Grand Central, the majority, or 81 percent of the 43.5 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 8 percent of the space. In sales, Grand Central has 2.7 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $973 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 15th highest in Manhattan. For development, Grand Central has 1.7 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 17th highest in Manhattan. It had 1.8 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 six of the 17 commercial properties representing 756,557 square feet of the 1,182,025 square feet. The largest owner is State of New York, followed by Vulcan Real Estate and then HUBB NYC.
there are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 44 percent of the 278,829 square feet of built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 38 percent of the space.

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