Skarstedt Gallery pays $13.2M for retail in Chelsea

The fine art Skarstedt Gallery through the entity 547 West 25 Street LLC paid $13.2 million to Howard Read and John Cheim for the retail building (K1) at 547-549 West 25th Street in Chelsea, Manhattan. The expected use is cash flowing.
The deal closed on October 11, 2024 and was recorded on October 29, 2024. The property has 5,891 square feet of built space and 23,584 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 29,480 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $2,249 and the price per buildable square foot is $449 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 Howard Read and John Cheim was Howard Read and John Cheim. The signatory for Skarstedt Gallery was Per Skarstedt. The contract date was August 9, 2024.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Skarstedt Gallery had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Howard Read had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The retail building in Chelsea has 5,891 square feet of built space and 23,584 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 29,480 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 59 feet and is 98 feet deep with a total lot size of 5,896 square feet. The zoning is M1-5 which allows for up to 5 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing The property is in the West Chelsea Historic District. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $2.4 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 $1,200 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 Chelsea, The bulk, or 35 percent of the 52.5 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 28 percent of the space. In sales, Chelsea has the 7th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.1 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Chelsea has 1.7 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 19th highest in Manhattan. It had 1.8 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 4 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other retail buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of three of the 10 commercial properties representing 298,392 square feet of the 941,138 square feet. The largest owner is Douglas Oliver, followed by Artemis Real Estate Partners and then Moinian Group.
On the tax block, there were three new building construction projects totaling 424,574 square feet. The largest is a 43-unit, 148,125 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Moinian Group and filed by Aron Kirsch with plans filed July 15, 2016 and it has not been permitted yet. The second largest is a 148,114 square-foot business (B) building submitted by Moinian Group and filed by Aron Kirsch with plans filed June 13, 2019 and permitted May 20, 2020.

The majority, or 63 percent of the 941,138 square feet of built space are office buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 23 percent of the space.

Direct link to Acris document. link