Robert Gans acquires industrial in Hell’s Kitchen valued at $4.5M, set to transfer to Extell

Robert Gans through the entity Argo 45, LLC paid $4.5 million to Shalom Azani through the entity SA Waterfront Realty Inc for industrial building (G9) at 605 West 45th Street in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan.
This is the execution of the purchase option transferring ownership to Robert Gans, who will in turn transfer it to Extell Development as part of a $200 million settlement agreement.
The deal closed on September 19, 2022 and was recorded on September 29, 2022. The property has 3,450 square feet of built space and 9,050 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 12,500 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,304 and the price per buildable square foot is $360 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 Shalom Azani was Boris Saks. The signatory for Robert Gans was Neil Goldstein.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has no record that the buyer Robert Gans had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Shalom Azani had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The 3,450-square-foot property generated revenue of $171,108 or $50 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 605 West 45th Street parcel has frontage of 25 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,500 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M2-4 which allows for up to 5 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $823,000.

Violations and lawsuits

The property was involved in one lawsuit and zero bankruptcies over the past two years. The suit was a $4.5 million judgment concerning a contract filed on May 2, 2022, by Bluestone Group and Extell Development against Robert Gans. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received $1,000 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 41.9 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 17 percent of the space. In sales, Hell’s Kitchen has 3.8 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $1.3 billion in sales volume in the last two years and is the 10th 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 5th highest in Manhattan. It had 3.1 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 were four pre-foreclosure suit filed among other industrial buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of six of the eight commercial properties representing 113,008 square feet of the 116,458 square feet. The two identified owners are Bluestone Group and Extell Development.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 50 percent of the 116,458 square feet of built space are mixed-use buildings, with industrial buildings next occupying 38 percent of the space.

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