Shimshon Grunstein pays $2.1M to Roman Catholic Church for dev site in Norwood

Shimshon Grunstein through the entity 3537 Bainbridge Realty LLC paid $2.1 million to Roman Catholic Church through the entity Roman Catholic Church Of Saint Brendan And Saint for the specialty building (M4) at 3537 Bainbridge Avenue in Norwood, Bronx.
The deal closed on January 5, 2023 and was recorded on January 13, 2023. The property has 8,520 square feet of built space and 18,163 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 26,701 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $246 and the price per buildable square foot is $78 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 Roman Catholic Church was Raul G. Miguez. The signatory for Shimshon Grunstein was Shimshon Grunstein.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Shimshon Grunstein had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Roman Catholic Church purchased one property in one transaction for a total of $1.5 million and sold 20 properties in 13 transactions for a total of $112.9 million over the same time period.

The property

The 3537 Bainbridge Avenue parcel has frontage of 75 feet and is 103 feet deep with a total lot size of 7,762 square feet. The zoning is R7-1 which allows for up to 3.44 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $2 million.

Violations and lawsuits

The property was involved in two court actions and zero bankruptcies over the past two years. The highest value court action was a $2.1 million judgment concerning a leave to sell filed on August 11, 2021, by Roman Catholic Church of Saint Brendan and Saint Ann. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received $1,800 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 Norwood, the bulk, or 48 percent of the 17.8 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 30 percent of the space. In sales, Norwood has had very little sales volume relative to other neighborhoods with $108.9 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Norwood has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 210,236 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 1 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 18 of the 38 commercial properties representing 913,312 square feet of the 1,479,547 square feet. The largest owner is Yechiel Weinberger, followed by Vincent Saljanin and then Toporovsky Realty Group.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 68 percent of the 1.5 million square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 22 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Roman Catholic Church owned at least 145 commercial properties in New York City with 3,641,677 square feet and a city-determined market value of $637.3 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 50 percent of the 3,641,677 square feet of built space are specialty properties, with M1 properties next occupying 27 percent of the space. The bulk, or 47 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Queens next at 30 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Shimshon Grunstein owned at least two commercial properties in New York City. The portfolio has $43.9 million in debt, with top three lenders as Spruce Capital, Amalgamated Bank, and Piermont Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, all identified are elevator properties.

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