Rita Chou pays $16.3M for 24-unit walkup in Hell’s Kitchen that Icon bought for $10M in 2020

Rita Chou through the entity SH 410 LLC paid $16.3 million to Icon Realty Management through the entity 410 West 48 Realty LLC for the 24-unit residential walkup building (C7) at 410 West 48th Street in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan.
The deal closed on June 21, 2022 and was recorded on July 7, 2022. The property has 17,767 square feet of built space and 8,634 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 26,385 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $917 and the price per buildable square foot is $617 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.)
Icon bought the property on May 29, 2020, for $10.1 million. The signatory for Icon Realty Management was Terrence Lowenberg. The signatory for Rita Chou was Rita Chou.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has no record that the buyer Rita Chou had purchased any other properties and sold four properties in one transactions for a total of $73.5 million over the past 24 months.
The seller Icon Realty Management purchased one property in one transaction for a total of $8 million and sold six properties in six transactions for a total of $76.8 million over the same time period. The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development include Terrence Lowenberg, head officer and Todd Cohen, officer. The business entity is 410 West 48 Realty Llc.

The property

The 410 West 48th Street parcel has frontage of 50 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 4,383 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is R8 which allows for up to 6.02 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $4.9 million.The most recent loan totaled $18.2 million and was provided by Signature Bank on May 29, 2020.

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 received two DOB violations, $6,250 in ECB penalties, and $7,450 in OATH penalties 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 Hell’s Kitchen, the bulk, or 39 percent of the 44.7 million square feet of commercial built space are residential elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 18 percent of the space. In sales, Hell’s Kitchen has 4 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $1.3 billion in sales volume in the last two years and is the 11th highest in Manhattan. For development, Hell’s Kitchen has 3.2 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 6th highest in Manhattan. It had 3.3 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 7 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other residential walkup buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of nine of the 28 commercial properties representing 122,740 square feet of the 327,658 square feet. The largest owner is Fairstead, followed by Icon Realty Management and then Kamran Hakim. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 52 percent of the 378,166 square feet of built space are residential walkup buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 27 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Icon Realty Management owned at least 99 commercial properties with 1,105,224 square feet and a city-determined market value of $372.2 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $239.3 million in debt, with top three lenders as Signature Bank, New York Community Bank, and Bank Leumi respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 65 percent of the 1,105,224 square feet of built space are walkup properties, with elevator properties next occupying 14 percent of the space. The bulk, or 87 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 13 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Rita Chou owned at least one commercial property with 8,992 square feet and a city-determined market value of $4.2 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio consists of at least a single elevator property. It is located in Manhattan.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 410 West 48th Street, PincusCo identified five commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those five items, two were for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. They were one permit applications with a total initial cost of $1.4 million and one permit with a total initial cost of $1.3 million. The most recent of these two items was the permit on February 23, 2022 for a 9,450-square-foot R-2 building with four residential units at 435 West 48th Street.
One of those five items was a sale which Chestnut Holdings bought the 13,800-square-foot, 15-unit rental (C7) on 698 9th Avenue for $5.4 million from Estate of Carl Mazzella on October 28, 2021.
Of those five items, two were loans above $5 million totaling $22.7 million. The most recent of the two was Chestnut Holdings which borrowed $13.5 million from New York Community Bank secured by the 13,800-square-foot, 15-unit rental (C7) on 698 9th Avenue and three other properties on November 12, 2021.

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