Sunlight Development pays $25M to Eastone Equities for 118-unit dev site in Astoria

Brooklyn-based Sunlight Development through the entity 3055 Vernon LLC paid $25 million to Eastone Equities through the entity Pioneer Property Group LLC, Vernon 298 LLC and T Vernon Realty LLC for the industrial building (E1) at 30-55 Vernon Boulevard and three neighboring tax lots in Astoria, Queens.
Vicki Zhi Saali, on August 17, filed plans to convert a commercial building to a 118-unit residential building at 30-55 Vernon Boulevard in Astoria, Queens. The plans call for an increase in the size of the building from a 22-foot tall, two-story building with no dwelling units to a 90-foot tall, nine-story building with 118 dwelling units. This was filed with the New York City Department of Buildings under job number Q00795057.

The sale closed on August 25, 2022 and was recorded on August 31, 2022. The four properties have 24,000 square feet of built space and 94,603 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 118,662 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,041 and the price per buildable square foot is $210 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 Eastone Equities was Stuart Lederer and for two other sellers were Li Hua Chen and the attorney Jing An. The signatory for Sunlight Development was Linzhong Zhuo. Vicki Zhi Saali filed plans for the 118-unit residential building last month. The sale was first reported by Commercial Observer, which identified Stephen Preuss of RIPCO Real Estate as the broker, but did not identify Eastone Equities as the seller.  Eastone Equities has a rendering on its site for a 128_unit building.

Because multiple properties have been transacted, some of the following sections will follow the property with the largest assessed value, which in this case, is the property on 30-55 Vernon Boulevard.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has records that the buyer Sunlight Development purchased one property in one transaction for a total of $11.2 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Eastone Equities had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. Out of the four properties, one with a total of 24,000 square feet of built space generated revenue of $525,465 per year.

The property

The 30-55 Vernon Boulevard parcel has frontage of 179 feet and is 175 feet deep with a total lot size of 25,870 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is R7A which allows for up to 4 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential with inclusionary housing. 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 properties since September of 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the properties have received three DOB violations, $25,655 in ECB penalties, and $25,705 in OATH penalties in the last year.

The neighborhood

In Astoria, the bulk, or 37 percent of the 39.2 million square feet of commercial built space are walkup buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 29 percent of the space. In sales, Astoria has 3 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $1 billion in sales volume in the last two years and is the 2nd highest in Queens. For development, Astoria has 3.4 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 4th highest in Queens. It had 3.7 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 9 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

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

The majority, or 87 percent of the 27,470 square feet of built space are industrial buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 13 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Sunlight Development owned at least one commercial property in New York City with 34,645 square feet and a city-determined market value of $5.4 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $8.4 million in debt, borrowed from S3 Capital. The portfolio consists of at least a single elevator property. It is located in Queens.

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