Thor Equities signs $46.5M refi loan with AB CarVal for James Hotel in SoHo

Thor Equities through the entity Thor James Hotel Leaseco LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender AB CarVal Investors through the entity Cvi Sa2 Senior Loan Holdings, LLC valued at $46.5 million for two properties including the hotel building (HB) at 27 Grand Street in SoHo, Manhattan and retail building (K1) at 23 Grand Street in SoHo, Manhattan.
The deal closed on October 21, 2022 and was recorded on November 7, 2022. The prior lender was Amherst Capital Management which held debt that had an original loan amount of $50 million.

The two properties have 58,864 square feet of built space and 4,910 square feet of additional air rights according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $790 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 Thor Equities was Morris Missry. The signatory for AB CarVal Investors was David Fry.

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 27 Grand Street.

Prior sales and revenue

The owner according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development is John Horinek, head officer. The business entity is Thor James Hotel Leaseco Llc Dba Modernhaus Soho. Out of the two properties, one with a total of 58,864 square feet of built space generated revenue of $592,522 per year.

The property

The 27 Grand Street parcel has frontage of 57 feet and is 141 feet deep with a total lot size of 9,676 square feet. The zoning is M1-5B which allows for up to 5 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $22.4 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 one DOB violation and $2,860 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 $5 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In SoHo, the bulk, or 46 percent of the 9.4 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 15 percent of the space. In sales, SoHo has 1.6 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $567.1 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 25th highest in Manhattan. For development, SoHo has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 255,824 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.

The block

On the tax block of 27 Grand Street, PincusCo has identified the owners of five of the 13 commercial properties representing 78,300 square feet of the 294,604 square feet. The largest owner is Thor Equities, followed by Kano Real Estate Investments and then Marlon Moskowitz Irrevocable Trust.
On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 326,974 square feet. It is a 326,974-square-foot office (B) building developed by Colleen Wenke with plans filed June 14, 2022 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 83 percent of the 294,604 square feet of built space are hotel buildings, with retail buildings next occupying 7 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Thor Equities owned at least 47 commercial properties in New York City with 872,287 square feet and a city-determined market value of $232.8 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $192.2 million in debt, with top three lenders as MetLife, Athene Holding, and JPMorgan Chase respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 37 percent of the 872,287 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with office properties next occupying 34 percent of the space. The bulk, or 70 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 30 percent of the space.

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