Ron Ben-Josef affiliates pay $2.3M for historic Jewish center building in Lincoln Square

Ronen Ben-Joseph of Ben-Josef Group Holdings through the entities 232 West End Development LLC and BMN West End LLC, paid $2.3 million to Hineni Heritage Center through the entity Hineni Heritage Foundation Trust for the historic religious building (M1) at 232 West End Avenue in Lincoln Square, Manhattan.
The deal closed on August 24, 2023 and was recorded on August 31, 2023. The property has 6,380 square feet of built space and 64 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 6,452 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $360 and the price per buildable square foot is $356 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 Hineni Heritage Center was Shlomo Gertzulin, Israel Jungreis, and Slovah C. Jungreis. The signatory for Ben-Josef Group Holdings was Ronen Ben-Josef. The contract date was May 21, 2023. The Hineni Heritage Center bought the building in 1984 for $925,000.

The two buyer entities each own a 50 percent stake.

According to a brief history of the center, “The… preparations culminated in the founding of the Hineni Heritage Center which met in Rabbi Abraham Jungreis’ shul until a building on West End Avenue was acquired. ”

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer Ben-Josef Group Holdings purchased three properties in three transactions for a total of $40 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Hineni Heritage Center had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The specialty building in Lincoln Square has 6,380 square feet of built space and 64 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 6,452 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 20 feet and is 80 feet deep with a total lot size of 1,613 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is R8B which allows for up to 4 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The property is in the West End-Collegiate Historic District Extension. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $2.9 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months. In addition, according to city public data, the property has 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 $1 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Lincoln Square, The majority, or 61 percent of the 19.1 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 24 percent of the space. In sales, Lincoln Square has the 9th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.9 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Lincoln Square has 1.4 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 20th highest in Manhattan. It had 1.4 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.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of four of the 25 commercial properties representing 17,280 square feet of the 267,219 square feet. The largest owner is John & Christina Galinos Of Christina Galinos, followed by George Aryeh and then Ethan Rozenblatt.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 64 percent of the 267,219 square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 33 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Ben-Josef Group Holdings owned at least one commercial property with 43 residential units in New York City with 33,949 square feet and a city-determined market value of $6.8 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio consists of at least a single elevator property. It is located in Brooklyn.

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