Top Rock pays $12.1M for outdoor storage parcels in Whitestone, sellers involved in partition suit

Top Rock Holdings through the entity Top Rock Whitestone LLC paid $12.1 million to Stephan Kalaijian and Barbara Grace for an outdoor industrial storage yard composed of six tax lots including 151-11 6th Road, 151 6th Road in Whitestone, Queens. The buyer according to a source familiar with the plans intends to use the space for industrial outdoor storage, not redevelopment, with an intent to lease it to companies in a category of credit fleet operating tenants such as ConEd, Verizon, FedEx or others.
The acquisition was financed with an $8.3 million loan from Lightstone Group.
The deal closed on January 30, 2023 and was recorded on February 3, 2023. The six properties have 4,304 square feet of built space and 195,684 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 199,984 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $2,811 and the price per buildable square foot is $60 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 Stephan Kalaijian and Barbara Grace was the attorney Donna-Marie Korth, who acted as a referee in a partition case brought by Kalajian. The signatory for Top Rock Holdings was Uri Mermelstein. Top Rock Holdings is led by Uri Mermelstein and Joseph Yushuvayev. The previous owner entity Grahel Associates was subject to a partition lawsuit 49 percent owner Kalajian filed in Suffolk County in 2020. Kalajian was a partner with Richard Grace, who died, and whose stake was controlled by Barbara Grace.
According to the complaint, “Richard Grace was, prior to his death in 2017, the owner of Grace Holding, and he received a distribution of 51% of the net profits of the Company resulting from rental income derived from the Property, which profits were paid monthly. After Richard’s death, his wife, Barbara Grace (“Barbara”), became the sole owner of Grace Holding. Mr. Kalaijian is a forty-nine (49%) percent owner of the Company. 6. Respondent, R. A. Grace Holding Corp. (“Grace Holding”), is a corporation organized and existing by virtue of the laws of the State of New York, with a principal place of business located at 470 West Street, Harrison New York, and is a member and fifty-one (51%) percent owner of the Company.”

Court filings represent the positions of one party and are not necessarily accurate or complete.

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 151 6th Road.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer Top Rock Holdings purchased seven properties in six transactions for a total of $164 million and sold one property in one transaction for a total of $2.4 million over the past 24 months.
The seller Stephan Kalaijian had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. Out of the six properties, two with a total of 4,304 square feet of built space generated revenue of $425,439 per year.

The property

The 151 6th Road parcel has frontage of 282 feet and is 335 feet deep with a total lot size of 94,981 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-1 which allows for up to 1 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1 million.

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 Whitestone, the bulk, or 27 percent of the 2.6 million square feet of commercial built space are specialty buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 21 percent of the space. In sales, Whitestone has the 33rd highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in Queens with $35.3 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Whitestone has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 7,686 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 0.30 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On the tax block, there were 14 new building construction projects totaling 48,399 square feet. The largest is a one-unit, 5,423-square-foot R-3 building developed by Andon Iksino with plans filed February 22, 2018 and permitted March 1, 2022. The second largest is a one-unit, 3,761-square-foot R-3 building developed by Peng Li with plans filed August 21, 2018 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 96 percent of the 16,674 square feet of built space are industrial buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 4 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Top Rock Holdings owned at least seven commercial properties in New York City.

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