Thomas Ta affiliate 99c LLC pays $252M to Vanbarton Group in FiDi

Thomas Ta affiliate 99c LLC through the entity One Seven Five Water LLC paid $252 million to the Vanbarton Group through the entity 175 Water Street Owner LLC for the office building at 175 Water Street in Financial District, Manhattan.
The deal closed on October 6, 2022 and was recorded on October 13, 2022. The 30 commercial condominium units that make up the building have 462,377 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $545 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 Vanbarton Group was Justin B. Kleinman. The signatory for 99c LLC was Thomas Ta. The Commercial Observer first reported the buyer as 99c LLC, identifying an individual Carlo Bellini as a co-founder and identifying JLL as the sale broker.

In addition the sale was reported to be all cash, but the transfer documents show the buyer took out a $165 million loan from a Delaware company, Howell Mountain Holdings Inc., which is a reduction from the $175 million in debt Blackstone provided Vanbarton in 2019. Thomas Ta is identified as the “sole manager” of the entity Acute 7 LLC, which is identified as the sole member of the owner entity, One Seven Five Water LLC.

The owner entity is registered at a Brooklyn address 249 Smith Street, unit #140, which is also the registration for the entity 25c LLC with Dawson Stellberger as buyer signatory of that property. Thomas Ta was identified as a managing member of 25c LLC in a state document.

Stellberger was also the signatory for the purchase of another property, 48c LLC of 48 Eldridge Street.

Prior sales and revenue

The seller Vanbarton Group purchased 11 properties in three transactions for a total of $237.5 million and sold eight properties in four transactions for a total of $59.6 million over the same time period.

The property

The most recent loan totaled $175 million and was provided by Blackstone Group on September 26, 2019.

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 not received any significant violations in the last year.

The neighborhood

In Financial District, the majority, or 75 percent of the 81.3 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 15 percent of the space. In sales, Financial District has the 6th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $2 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Financial District is the 5th most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 7.3 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. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other office buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On the tax block of 175 Water Street, PincusCo has identified the owners of 30 of the 31 commercial properties representing 462,377 square feet of the 515,346 square feet. The identified owner is Vanbarton Group.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Vanbarton Group owned at least 50 commercial properties in New York City with 2,885,800 square feet and a city-determined market value of $975.4 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $1.4 billion in debt, with top three lenders as Blackstone Group, Blackstone Mortgage Trust, and Brookfield Asset Management respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 78 percent of the 2,885,800 square feet of built space are office properties, with elevator properties next occupying 13 percent of the space. They are all located in Manhattan.

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