United American Land files plans for 100-unit building in SoHo

The Laboz family’s United American Land submitted a new building construction project for a 100-unit, 96,427 square-foot residential (R-2) building at 277 Canal Street at the corner of Broadway in SoHo, Manhattan. The building has an alternate address of 420 Broadway. Casey Martinez, director of development of United American Land submitted the plans.
The plan was filed with the New York City Department of Buildings on February 9, 2023 under job number M00820605. It calls for the construction of a 13-story building. The project is described in the filing as: construct new 13-story mixed-use building as per plans filed herewith. The architect is Morris Adjmi Architects. United American Land is led by the Laboz brothers Jason, Jody and Albert Laboz.
The new building will have retail on the ground floor and apartments above.

The property

The existing mixed-use building known as the Oltarsh Building was originally a theater and opened in 1927. It has 29,343 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data, and no demolition plan has been filed. The property is owned by United American Land. The parcel has frontage of 126 feet and is 62 feet deep with a total lot size of 9,959 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-5B which allows for up to 5 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing The property is in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District Extension. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $7 million. The most recent loan totaled $18 million and was provided by Signature Bank on May 27, 2022.

Violations and lawsuits

According to city public data, the property has received $4,000 in OATH penalties in the last year.

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of eight of the 24 commercial properties representing 249,951 square feet of the 467,365 square feet. The largest owner is Chetrit Group, followed by Elsa Lai and then Harry Spitzer Inc. On the tax block, there were two new building construction projects totaling 191,280 square feet. The largest is a 100-unit, 96,427 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by United American Land and filed by Casey Martinez with plans filed February 9, 2023 and it has not been permitted yet. The second largest is a 105-unit, 94,853 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Stellar Management and filed by Lyle Kamesaki with plans filed October 31, 2022 and it has not been permitted yet.

The owner

The PincusCo database currently indicates that United American Land owned at least 50 commercial properties with 221 residential units in New York City with 950,006 square feet and a city-determined market value of $310.6 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $354.6 million in debt, with top three lenders as Signature Bank, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 36 percent of the 950,006 square feet of built space are mixed-use properties, with elevator properties next occupying 23 percent of the space. The bulk, or 56 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 27 percent of the space.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 422 Broadway, PincusCo identified 12 commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those 12 items, four were sales above $5 million totaling $56 million. The most recent of the four was Stellar Management which bought the 18,705-square-foot, five-unit office building (O5) on 126 Lafayette Street for $7 million from DH Realty & Management on April 28, 2022. Of those 12 items, eight were loans above $5 million totaling $180 million. The most recent of the eight was David Zahabian who borrowed $6.7 million from BCB Community Bank secured by the 12,200-square-foot, two-unit office building (O2) on 400 Broadway on August 9, 2022.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page and link to DOB NOW portal.