Uikun Lee signs $27.2M refi with Woori America for office in Penn Plaza

Uikun Lee through the entity Montague Lee 32 LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender Woori America Bank valued at $27.2 million for the office building (O6) at 22 West 32nd Street in Penn Plaza, Manhattan.
The deal closed on October 6, 2023 and was recorded on October 18, 2023. The prior lender was Woori America Bank which held debt that had an original loan amount of $30 million.
The property has 113,000 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $240 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 owner bought the property on January 8, 2014, for $55 million. The signatory for Uikun Lee was Uikun Lee. The signatory for Woori America Bank was Davis Min Jang.

The property

The office building in Penn Plaza has 113,000 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 75 feet and is 98 feet deep with a total lot size of 7,406 square feet. The zoning is C6-4 which allows for up to 10 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 10 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $14.8 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 two DOB violations and $4,000 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

For the tax lot building, it received its initial rehab certificate of occupancy on May 19, 2015. 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 Penn Plaza, the majority, or 76 percent of the 20.4 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 8 percent of the space. In sales, Penn Plaza has had very little sales volume relative to other neighborhoods with $266.1 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Penn Plaza has 1.2 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 21st highest in Manhattan. It had 1.2 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 6 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 14 of the 28 commercial properties representing 1,406,759 square feet of the 1,746,232 square feet. The largest owner is Uikun Lee, followed by Uikun Lee and then Torkian Group.
On the tax block, there were two new building construction projects totaling 76,850 square feet. The largest is a 27-unit, 59,149 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Cottonwood Management and filed by Alex Shing with plans filed June 28, 2017 and it has not been permitted yet. The second largest is a 37-unit, 17,701 square-foot hotel/dormitory/shelter (R-1) building submitted by Raizada Vaid with plans filed March 20, 2015 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 79 percent of the 1.7 million square feet of built space are office buildings, with retail buildings next occupying 8 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Uikun Lee owned at least four commercial properties in New York City with about 240,000 square feet and a city-determined market value of about $590 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $47 million in debt, borrowed from Bank of Hope. Within the portfolio, all identified are retail properties. The bulk, or 65 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Queens next at 35 percent of the space.

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