Shulem Herman signs $49M refi with Customers Bank for school in Brownsville

Shulem Herman through the entity Pitkin Terrace LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender Customers Bank valued at $49 million for the school building (W9) at 1501 Pitkin Avenue in Brownsville, Brooklyn. The charter school Brownsville Ascend Lower School occupies the building.
The deal closed on September 16, 2025 and was recorded on September 29, 2025. The prior lender was Blackstone Group which held debt that had an original loan amount of $50 million.The property has 129,654 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $377 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 December 26, 2017, for $53 million. The signatory for Shulem Herman was Avi Rosengarten . The signatory for Customers Bank was Gregory Fantauzzi .

The property

The specialty building in Brownsville has 129,654 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 200 feet and is 169 feet deep with a total lot size of 34,602 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is C4-3 which allows for up to 3.4 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 2.43 times FAR for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $30.5 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 received one DOB violation and $2,425 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 $1 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Brownsville, The bulk, or 46 percent of the 28.6 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 21 percent of the space. In sales, Brownsville has had very little sales volume relative to other neighborhoods with $162.5 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Brownsville has 1.3 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 7th highest in Brooklyn. It had 1.9 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 owner of the one commercial property that spans that spans 129,654 square feet on the block.The identified owner is Ascend Charter Schools.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

All properties are specialty.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Shulem Herman owned at least 19 commercial properties with 139 residential units in New York City with 247,634 square feet and a city-determined market value of $39.6 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $124.2 million in debt, with top three lenders as Dime Community Bank, Broadview Funding, and Bethpage Federal Credit Union respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 47 percent of the 247,634 square feet of built space are hotel properties, with walkup properties next occupying 32 percent of the space. The bulk, or 53 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Queens next at 47 percent of the space.

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