Robert Von Ancken pays $7.7M to Croman Real Estate for mixed-use in Hell’s Kitchen

Robert Von Ancken through the entity 459 West 50th Street Owner LLC paid $7.7 million to Croman Real Estate through the entity 459 W 50 St LLC for the six-unit mixed-use building (S9) at 459 West 50th Street in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan.
The deal closed on May 9, 2022 and was recorded on February 22, 2023. The property has 5,749 square feet of built space and 4,681 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 10,438 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,339 and the price per buildable square foot is $737 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 seller bought the property on May 29, 2008, for $3.5 million. The signatory for Croman Real Estate was Steven Croman. The signatory for Robert Von Ancken was Robert Von Ancken. The buyer entity with Robert Von Ancken as signatory, is registered at the cooperative apartment unit which Von Ancken owns.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Robert Von Ancken had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Croman Real Estate had not purchased any other properties and sold 10 properties in nine transactions for a total of $83 million over the same time period. The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Aaron Kitaeff, head officer and Zuki Zuvdija- Medunjanin, site manager. The business entity is 459 W 50 St Llc.

The property

The 459 West 50th Street parcel has frontage of 23 feet and is 73 feet deep with a total lot size of 1,734 square feet. 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 $2.7 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 received $740 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 41.7 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 3.9 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $1.4 billion in sales volume in the last two years and is the 10th highest in Manhattan. For development, Hell’s Kitchen has 3.7 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 7th highest in Manhattan. It had 3.7 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 9 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other mixed-use buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 16 of the 48 commercial properties representing 128,804 square feet of the 491,907 square feet. The largest owner is Sackman Enterprises, followed by Madison Realty Capital and then John Sharma.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 80 percent of the 310,447 square feet of built space are walkup buildings, with office buildings next occupying 9 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Croman Real Estate owned at least 145 commercial properties in New York City with 1,616,224 square feet and a city-determined market value of $566.1 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $212.5 million in debt, with top three lenders as New York Community Bank, Axos Bank, and PIMCO respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 80 percent of the 1,616,224 square feet of built space are walkup properties, with elevator properties next occupying 16 percent of the space. They are all located in Manhattan.

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