TF Cornerstone pays $70.8M for 95-unit residential rental in Williamsburg

TF Cornerstone through the entity 223 N 8 LLC paid $70.8 million to Trinity Place Holdings and Pacolet Milliken through the entity 223 North 8th Street Owner, LLC for 95-unit residential elevator building at 223 North 8th Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on April 27, 2022 and was recorded on May 5, 2022.The property has 86,700 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $816 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 December 5, 2016, for $68.9 million. The signatory for Trinity Place Holdings and Pacolet Milliken was Clay Adams. The signatory for TF Cornerstone was Jeremy Shell. Globe St. was the first to report TF Cornerstone’s purchase of the Williamsburg apartment building.  JLL marketed the property, according to a release.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer TF Cornerstone had purchased any other properties and sold one properties in one transactions for a total of $35 million over the past 24 months.
The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Clay Adams, head officer and John Macgowun, officer. The business entities are FirstService Residential and 223 North 8th Street Owner, Llc. The 86,700-square-foot property generated revenue of $3.6 million or $42 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 223 North 8th Street parcel has frontage of 125 feet and is 200 feet deep with a total lot size of 20,000 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-2/R6A which allows for up to 2 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing and up to 3 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The property has a 421A exemption that started in 2018 and expires in 2043. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $17.2 million.The most recent loan totaled $33 million and was provided by MUFG Union Bank on February 28, 2020.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property since September of 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received $1,875 in ECB penalties in the last year.

Development

For the tax lot building, it received its initial certificate of occupancy on June 2, 2016. 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 Williamsburg, the bulk, or 35 percent of the 65.1 million square feet of commercial built space are residential elevator buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 19 percent of the space. In sales, Williamsburg has the 9th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.4 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Williamsburg is the 6th most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 5.1 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 8 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There were three pre-foreclosure suit filed among other residential elevator buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of five of the 11 commercial properties representing 109,050 square feet of the 136,983 square feet. The largest owner is Pacolet Millican, followed by Richard Cohn and then RYL Group. There are two active new building construction projects totaling 15,860 square feet. The largest is a four-unit, 6,744-square-foot R-2 building developed by Howard Ng with plans filed October 7, 2013 and it has not been permitted yet. The second largest is a four-unit, 9,116-square-foot R-2 building developed by Howard Ng with plans filed June 18, 2021 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 65 percent of the 163,417 square feet of built space are residential elevator buildings, with D2 buildings next occupying 15 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that TF Cornerstone owned at least 24 commercial properties with 8,977,553 square feet and a city-determined market value of $2.5 billion. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $1.7 billion in debt, with top three lenders as Wells Fargo, PNC Bank, and M&T Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 96 percent of the 8,977,553 square feet of built space are residential elevator properties, with office properties next occupying 4 percent of the space. The bulk, or 62 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Queens next at 36 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 223 North 8th Street, PincusCo identified seven commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those seven items, one was in new building development. It was a new building permit issued on May 7, 2020 for a 64,529-square-foot R-2 building with 31 residential units at 215 North 10th Street.
One of those seven items was a sale which WPA Realty bought the 7,493-square-foot, 10-unit rental (C1) on 203 North 7th Street for $9.3 million from Howard Wasserman on May 15, 2020.
Of those seven items, five were loans above $5 million totaling $111.3 million. The most recent of the five was Rabsky Group which borrowed $45.8 million from Customers Bank secured by the 106,678-square-foot, 113-unit rental (D1) on 205 North 9th Street on January 3, 2022.

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