SolaREIT pays $4.9M to Abingdon Square for dev site in Van Nest

SolaREIT through the entity SolaREIT2-A-II LLC paid $4.9 million to Abingdon Square Partners through the entity 435 Devoe LLC for the development building (V1) at 439 Devoe Avenue in Van Nest, Bronx. The expected use is ground-up development.
The deal closed on December 5, 2024 and was recorded on January 10, 2025. The property has zero square feet of built space and 16,892 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 16,892 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per buildable square foot is $290 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 seller bought the property on January 25, 2018, for $1 million. The signatory for Abingdon Square Partners was Benjamin Atkins. The signatory for SolaREIT was Sandoval Coustasse. The contract date was February 7, 2024. SolaREIT signed a lease with an entity, Scarlet Tanager Clean Energy LLC, in care of Urban Future Lab, with signatories including Adam Cohen, affiliated with NineDot Energy.

NineDot Energy, is in care of Urban Future Lab, a Brooklyn-based climatech incubator that is part of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering and the NYU Tandon Future Labs. It has raised $2.3 billion in funding, according to its website.

According to NineDot Energy, the company was, “Founded in 2015, currently based at the NYU Urban Future Lab in Brooklyn and backed by The Carlyle Group and Manulife, we’re committed to providing clean energy solutions to the New York area and beyond.”

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer SolaREIT purchased one property in one transaction for a total of $2.1 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Abingdon Square Partners had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The parcel has frontage of 106 feet and is 164 feet deep with a total lot size of 16,892 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-1 which allows for up to 1 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $610,000.

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 not received any significant violations 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 Van Nest, The bulk, or 29 percent of the 3.6 million square feet of commercial built space are walkup buildings, with industrial buildings next occupying 28 percent of the space. In sales, Van Nest has the 30th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in Bronx with $27.3 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Van Nest has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 162,117 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.

The block

There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 100 percent of the 100,050 square feet of built space are industrial buildings, with development buildings next occupying 0 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Abingdon Square Partners owned at least two commercial properties in New York City with 16,401 square feet and a city-determined market value of $1.2 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, all identified are industrial properties. They are all located in Brooklyn.

Direct link to Acris document. link