Sheryl Hempel signs $16M refi with Crestline Investors on Lower East Side

Sheryl Hempel through the entity 330 Grand LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender Crestline Investors through the entity Crestline Direct Finance LP valued at $16 million for the development at 330 Grand Street in Lower East Side, Manhattan.
This is the first loan PincusCo has tracked in the past three years for Crestline  Investors in New York City.

On the lot, there is one active new building construction project for a 12-unit, 11,125 square-foot R-2 building. The project was submitted by Daniel Wise with plans filed September 1, 2017 and permitted October 13, 2022.
The deal closed on August 4, 2023 and was recorded on August 30, 2023. The prior lender was Parkview Financial which held debt that had an original loan amount of $12.3 million.

The property has 11,900 square feet of development rights for a total buildable of 11,900 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per buildable square foot is $1,344 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 owner bought the property on July 13, 2017, for $6 million. The signatory for Sheryl Hempel was Sheryl Hempel. The signatory for Crestline Investors was John Cochran.

The property

The parcel has frontage of 49 feet and is 60 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,975 square feet. The zoning is C4-4A which allows for up to 4 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 4 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1.8 million. The most recent loan totaled $12.3 million and was provided by Parkview Financial on December 1, 2020.

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 received $1,980 in OATH penalties in the last year.

The neighborhood

In Lower East Side, The majority, or 51 percent of the 23.8 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 21 percent of the space. In sales, Lower East Side has 1.5 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $532.2 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 25th highest in Manhattan. For development, Lower East Side has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 213 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 0.00 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of seven of the 20 commercial properties representing 378,277 square feet of the 479,536 square feet. The largest owner is Sheryl Hempel, followed by Sanglimchi and then NYC Department Of Education.
On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 11,125 square feet. It is a 12-unit, 11,125 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Daniel Wise with plans filed September 1, 2017 and permitted October 13, 2022.

The majority, or 66 percent of the 479,536 square feet of built space are specialty buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 24 percent of the space.

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