SMA Equities, partners pay $36.8M to Hirsch family for dev site in Alphabet City

SMA Equities and partners through the entity 156 Third Holding, LLC (and other entities) paid $36.8 million to the Hirsch family through the entity 280 East Houston Street Associates, LP for the property at 280 East Houston Street in Alphabet City, Manhattan. Daniel Hirsch filed plans for a 67-unit, 68,531-square-foot building in December 2021. The Real Deal reported that the site has development rights up to 127,000 square feet.
The deal closed on October 11, 2022 and was recorded on October 14, 2022.
The signatory for Daniel Hirsch was Brenda Gruss. The signatory for SMA Equities and David Moussazadeh was Sassan Mahfar and Brenda Gruss. The seller retained an 8% interest in the deal. The Real Deal reported David Moussazadeh was one of the buyers, and that David Schechtman of Meridian Capital Group brokered the sale. Daniel Hirsch filed plans in December 2021 for a 67-unit project at the site, which was needed to qualify for the 421a tax exemption. The property was previously identified as the tax lot 1303 with an address 250 East Houston Street.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer SMA Equities had purchased any other properties and sold five properties in five transactions for a total of $55.4 million over the past 24 months.
The seller Daniel Hirsch had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

Development

On the tax lot, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 68,531 square feet. It is a 67-unit, 68,531-square-foot R-2 building developed by Daniel Hirsch with plans filed December 23, 2021 and it has not been permitted yet.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of two of the 15 commercial properties representing 28,134 square feet of the 242,518 square feet. The two identified owners are Kushner Companies and Atkins & Breskin.

The majority, or 55 percent of the 210,130 square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 35 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that SMA Equities owned at least 14 commercial properties in New York City with 287,282 square feet and a city-determined market value of $87 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 60 percent of the 287,282 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with mixed-use properties next occupying 19 percent of the space. The bulk, or 72 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Queens next at 28 percent of the space.

Direct link to Acris document with legacy 1303 tax lot. link
Direct link to Acris document with new tax lot 58. link