RFR Holding signs $45M refi for two retail condo units in Lenox Hill

RFR Holding through the entity RFD Third Avenue Retail Associates LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender Signature Bank valued at $45 million for two retail condominium units at 188 East 78th Street in Lenox Hill, Manhattan.
The deal closed on October 1, 2022 and was recorded on January 17, 2023. The prior lender was Signature Bank which held debt that had an original loan amount of $45 million. The two properties have 21,581 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $2,085 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 signatory for RFR Holding was Frank Mangieri. The signatory for Signature Bank was Michael Riegler. Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs are identified as guarantors for the loan.

The property

One of the 188 East 78th Street parcels has a total lot size of 8,527 square feet. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $29.1 million.

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 neighborhood

In Lenox Hill, the bulk, or 35 percent of the 51.9 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 28 percent of the space. In sales, Lenox Hill has the highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $4 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Lenox Hill has 2.9 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 9th highest in Manhattan. It had 3 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 6 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On the tax block of 188 East 78th Street, PincusCo has identified the owners of seven of the 24 commercial properties representing 67,569 square feet of the 298,581 square feet. The largest owner is Sol Goldman Investments, followed by Lesli Rice and then Lawrence G. Creel.
On the tax block, there were two new building construction projects totaling 96,705 square feet. The largest is a 25-unit, 84,512-square-foot R-2 building developed by John Usdan with plans filed September 20, 2017 and permitted March 27, 2019. The second largest is a one-unit, 12,193-square-foot R-3 building developed by Lauren & Martin Geller with plans filed May 29, 2015 and permitted February 28, 2017.

The majority, or 43 percent of the 271,751 square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with industrial buildings next occupying 17 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that RFR Holding owned at least 16 commercial properties in New York City with 3,045,764 square feet and a city-determined market value of $1.2 billion. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 83 percent of the 3,045,764 square feet of built space are office properties, with hotel properties next occupying 13 percent of the space. They are all located in Manhattan.

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