Son Dinh Tran of Tran Group pays $5M for residential walkup in Hell’s Kitchen

Son Dinh Tran of the Tran Group through the entity 670 9th Avenue LLC paid $5 million to Piao Chu Lin through the entity Huanglin Realty Corp. for the midblock eight-unit residential walkup building at 670 9th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan.
The deal closed on February 16, 2022 and was recorded on March 18, 2022. The property has 8,010 square feet of built space and 3,778 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 11,787 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $624 and the price per buildable square foot is $424 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.)

Son Dinh Tran has purchased at least nine properties for $55.4 million since January 2021, according to PincusCo data.

Prior sales and revenue

The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development included Li-Tzu Huang, head officer and Piao-Chu Lin, officer. The business entity was Huanglin Realty Corp. The 8,010-square-foot property generated revenue of $352,120 or $44 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 670 9th Avenue parcel has frontage of 25 feet and is 82 feet deep with a total lot size of 1,958 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is R8 which allows for up to 6.02 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $5.1 million.

Violations and lawsuits

The property was not involved in any lawsuits or bankruptcies in the past years. 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 $5 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Hell’s Kitchen, the bulk, or 39 percent of the 45 million square feet of built space are residential elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 17 percent of the space. In sales, Hell’s Kitchen has 3.5 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $972.1 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 13th highest in Manhattan. For development, Hell’s Kitchen has 1.3 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 18th highest in Manhattan. It had 1.2 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 3 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other residential walkup buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 11 of the 60 commercial properties representing 93,885 square feet of the 818,435 square feet. The largest owner is Brusco Group, followed by Julian Romano and then Zhong Zhen Shi. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 47 percent of the 738,936 square feet of built space are hotel buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 31 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 670 9th Avenue, PincusCo identified 11 commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those 11 items, three were for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. They were three permit applications with a total initial cost of $2.3 million. The most recent of these three items was the filing on January 10, 2022 for a 4,057-square-foot A-2 building with zero residential units at 674 9th Avenue.
One of those 11 items was a sale which Chestnut Holdings bought the 13,800-square-foot, 15-unit rental (C7) on 698 9th Avenue for $5.4 million from Estate of Carl Mazzella on October 28, 2021.
Of those 11 items, seven were loans above $5 million totaling $84.2 million. The most recent of the seven was Chestnut Holdings which borrowed $13.5 million from New York Community Bank secured by the 13,800-square-foot, 15-unit rental (C7) on 698 9th Avenue and three other properties on November 12, 2021.

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