TF Cornerstone pays $174.1M to Pearl Realty Management for 2 dev sites in Greenpoint

The Elghanayan family’s TF Cornerstone paid $174.1 million to Jack Guttman‘s Pearl Realty Management for two development sites, 57 West Street and 24 Oak Street, on the Greenpoint waterfront in two separate transactions.

In the first, TF Cornerstone through the entity 2 Noble North LLC paid $144.1 million to Pearl Realty Management through the entity 57 West LLC for the vacant lot at 43 West Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The expected use is ground up development.
The deal closed on July 31, 2024 and was recorded on August 8, 2024. The property has 1,500 square feet of built space and 611,725 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 614,252 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per buildable square foot is $234 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.)

In the second, TF Cornerstone through the entity 2 Oak South LLC paid $30 million to Pearl Realty Management through the entity 24 Oak LLC for the vacant lot at 24 Oak Street in Brooklyn. The expected use is ground up development. The deal closed on July 31, 2024 and was recorded on August 8, 2024. The property has zero square feet of built space and 252,088 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 252,088 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per buildable square foot is $119 per the PincusCo analysis.

The signatory for Pearl Realty Management was Jack Guttman. The signatory for TF Cornerstone was Jeremy Shell. The contract date was July 1, 2024. The Real Deal first reported the sale noting the project could utilize the 485x tax benefit to build residential apartments, and identified the brokers as David Junik and Decio Baio of Pinnacle Realty of New York.

In December 2019, the state provided Guttman a certificate of completion under the Brownfield Cleanup Program, five years after initiating the process.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer TF Cornerstone had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months. The firm is actively developing large projects in the city including in Long Island City.
The seller Pearl Realty Management purchased 81 Prospect Street for $33.75 million and sold two properties in one transaction for a total of $2 million over the same time period.

The property

The specialty building in Greenpoint has 1,500 square feet of built space and 611,725 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 614,252 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 200 feet and is 595 feet deep with a total lot size of 252,779 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is R6 which allows for up to 2.43 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $2.8 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 $33,550 in ECB penalties and $33,550 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 Greenpoint, The bulk, or 29 percent of the 23.8 million square feet of commercial built space are walkup buildings, with industrial buildings next occupying 26 percent of the space. In sales, Greenpoint has 2.1 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $541 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 12th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Greenpoint has 1.5 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 10th highest in Brooklyn. It had 1.6 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 7 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owner of the one commercial property that spans that spans 1,500 square feet on the block.The identified owner is Pearl Realty Management.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

All properties are specialty.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Pearl Realty Management owned at least 71 commercial properties with 10 residential units in New York City with 1,144,017 square feet and a city-determined market value of $162.6 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 61 percent of the 1,144,017 square feet of built space are industrial properties, with office properties next occupying 19 percent of the space. The bulk, or 74 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Bronx next at 18 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Tf Cornerstone owned at least 28 commercial properties with 11,143 residential units in New York City with 10,738,578 square feet and a city-determined market value of $2.7 billion. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 97 percent of the 10,738,578 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with office properties next occupying 3 percent of the space. The bulk, or 52 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Queens next at 37 percent of the space.

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