Samuel Palace pays $4.9M to Witnick for two walkups in Crown Heights

Samuel Palace through the entity 1308-14 Eastern Realty LLC paid $4.9 million to Witnick Real Estate Partners through the entity 1308-14 Eastern Partners LLC for midblock eight-unit residential walkup building at 1314 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn and midblock 10-unit residential walkup building at 1308 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on March 1, 2022 and was recorded on March 21, 2022. The two properties have 18,238 square feet of built space and 6,224 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 24,278 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $267 and the price per buildable square foot is $200 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 Witnick Real Estate Partners was Isaac Abraham. The signatory for Samuel Palace was Samuel Palace.

Because multiple properties have been transacted, some of the following sections will follow the property with the largest assessed value, which in this case, is the property on 1314 Eastern Parkway.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Samuel Palace had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Witnick Real Estate Partners purchased 12 properties in 11 transactions for a total of $96.6 million and sold two properties in two transactions for a total of $8.7 million over the same time period. The former owner according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development is Ramiel Ben Yehuda, head officer. The business entity is 1308-14 Eastern Partners Llc. Out of the two properties, one with a total of 18,238 square feet of built space generated revenue of $134,849 per year.

The property

The 1314 Eastern Parkway parcel has frontage of 39 feet and is 108 feet deep with a total lot size of 4,483 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is R6 which allows for up to 2.43 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1.5 million.

Violations and lawsuits

The properties were not involved in any lawsuits or bankruptcies in the past years. In addition, according to city public data, the properties have received five housing violations and $100 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 Crown Heights, the bulk, or 27 percent of the 66.4 million square feet of commercial built space are residential elevator buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 27 percent of the space. In sales, Crown Heights has 1.2 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $336.3 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 11th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Crown Heights has 1.7 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 12th highest in Brooklyn. It had 1.6 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 2 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There were seven pre-foreclosure suit filed among other residential walkup buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On the tax block of 1314 Eastern Parkway, PincusCo has identified the owners of 12 of the 19 commercial properties representing 159,509 square feet of the 446,286 square feet. The largest owner is Benzion Wachsman, followed by Mendel Rabkin and then Witnick Real Estate Partners. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 49 percent of the 491,697 square feet of built space are residential elevator buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 25 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database, which is incomplete, currently indicates that Witnick Real Estate Partners owned at least 22 commercial properties with 257,565 square feet and a city-determined market value of $86.4 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $81.5 million in debt, with top three lenders as Dime Community Bank, Signature Bank, and Customers Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 84 percent of the 257,565 square feet of built space are residential walkup properties, with residential elevator properties next occupying 16 percent of the space. The bulk, or 70 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 30 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 1314 Eastern Parkway, Pincusco identified four commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those four items, one was for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. It was a permit application filed on March 19, 2021 for the $1.3 million renovation of 18,102-square-foot A-3 building with zero residential units at 15 Portal Street.
Of those four items, three were loans above $5 million totaling $17.1 million. The most recent of the three was Benzion Wachsman which borrowed $6.5 million from JPMorgan Chase secured by the 29,840-square-foot, 27-unit rental (D1) on 1360 Eastern Parkway and one other property on November 19, 2021.

Direct link to Acris document. link