Robert Cerrone of Park Construction buys bankrupt LIC dev site for $6.6M

Robert Cerrone of Park Construction paid $6.6 million for a development site at 38-24 32nd Street in Long Island City, Queens, on April 3, 2024, according to bankruptcy documents. The property is currently occupied by a 10,000-square-foot building.

Cerrone bought the building through the entity 32nd Realty Associates LLC. The contract date was August 23, 2023.

The former owner, Joseph Torres, placed the 10,000-square-foot commercial property in bankruptcy protection on May 10, 2021, in U.S. Bankruptcy Court’s Eastern District in Brooklyn. Torres in the filing said his property was impacted by Covid-19. Torres owns the Box House Hotel in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

The buyer plans to construct a market rate residential building with 25,650 buildable square feet, according to sources familiar with the transaction.

The bankruptcy sale was brokered by Alexandre Goulet, Anand Melwani, Dean Abouelhassan, and Christopher Daniels of Landair Property Advisors.

At the time of the bankruptcy filing, the property had two tenants, the filing says. Torres had taken out secured loans totaling $8.8 million, including $5.5 million from Cofane Associates as a purchase money mortgage and $3.3 million from Signature Bank, a review of city records shows.

Torres bought the property from Cofane Associates in 2015 for $6 million, financed with the $5.5 million purchase money mortgage and $2 million from Signature. Torres subsequently in 2019 took a second and third loan from Signature totaling $1.3 million.

The industrial building in Long Island City has 10,000 square feet of built space and 24,213 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 34,200 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 76 feet and is 90 feet deep with a total lot size of 6,840 square feet. The zoning is M1-3/R7X which allows for up to 5 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing and up to 5 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing.

The neighborhood

In Long Island City, The bulk, or 32 percent of the 60.1 million square feet of commercial built space are industrial buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 31 percent of the space. In sales, Long Island City has the 7th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.4 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Long Island City is the 7th most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 6.2 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 10 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other development buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of two of the eight commercial properties representing 9,250 square feet of the 32,750 square feet. The two identified owners are Stelios Stylianou and Yitzchok Katz. On the tax block, there were three new building construction projects totaling 46,287 square feet. The largest is a 41-unit, 31,755 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by AHRC New York City and filed by Rafel Salim with plans filed March 11, 2022 and permitted April 6, 2022. The second largest is a nine-unit, 8,184 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Virginia Lupoli with plans filed February 17, 2016 and it has not been permitted yet.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 38-26 32 Street, PincusCo identified eight commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those eight items, one was in new building development. It was a new building permit issued on January 10, 2024 for a 31,755-square-foot residential (R-2) building with 41 residential units at 38-38 32nd Street. Of those eight items, one was for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. It was a permit issued on July 13, 2023 for the $1,000,000 renovation of 47,621-square-foot residential (R-2) building with 52 residential units at 32-03 39th Avenue. Of those eight items, three were sales above $5 million totaling $39.9 million. The most recent of the three was Aidi Xu which bought the 22,549-square-foot, 21-unit rental (D6) on 32-04 38th Avenue for $11.2 million from Arun Agarwal and Rachita Agarwal on July 25, 2022. Of those eight items, three were loans above $5 million totaling $90.2 million. The most recent of the three was Shamik Bafna in which borrowed $10.5 million from Patriot Bank secured by the 25,000-square-foot, two-unit industrial (P7) on 38-27 30th Street on May 8, 2023.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page and link to DOB NOW portal.