United American Land pays $5M, adds to Downtown Brooklyn assemblage

United American Land through the entity 142 Lawrence LLC paid $5 million to Wendy Chin-Tanner through the entity 142 Lawrence Street Realty Corp. for the three-unit mixed-use building (S3) at 142 Lawrence Street in Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn. The expected use is ground up development.
The deal closed on November 21, 2024 and was recorded on December 2, 2024. The property has 3,860 square feet of built space and 7,636 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 11,500 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,295 and the price per buildable square foot is $434 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 Wendy Chin-Tanner was Wendy Chin-Tanner. The signatory for United American Land was Solomon Cohen. The contract date was August 29, 2024. The building is on a tax block bounded by Lawrence, Jay, Fulton and Willoughby streets, where United American Land has assembled a number of properties, as PincusCo has previously reported.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer United American Land purchased one property in one transaction for a total of $6.3 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Wendy Chin-Tanner had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The former owner according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development is Walter Chin, head officer. The business entity is 142 Lawrence St Realty Corp.

The property

The mixed-use building with 3 residential units in Downtown Brooklyn has 3,860 square feet of built space and 7,636 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 11,500 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 20 feet and is 57 feet deep with a total lot size of 1,150 square feet. The zoning is C6-4.5 which allows for up to 12 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1.8 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 not received any significant violations in the last year.

Development

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 Downtown Brooklyn, The bulk, or 40 percent of the 22.4 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 24 percent of the space. In sales, Downtown Brooklyn has 1.6 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $407.4 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 16th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Downtown Brooklyn has 2.9 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 3rd highest in Brooklyn. It had 3.1 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 14 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 13 of the 22 commercial properties representing 99,103 square feet of the 136,044 square feet. The largest owner is United American Land, followed by Solomon Schwimmer and then Wharton Properties.
On the tax block, there were two new building construction projects totaling 90,714 square feet. The largest is a 101-unit, 82,366 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Solomon Schwimmer and filed by Solomon Schwimmer with plans filed May 25, 2023 and permitted December 8, 2023. The second largest is a 8,348 square-foot mercantile (M) building submitted by Albert Laboz with plans filed January 7, 2020 and permitted April 21, 2021.

The majority, or 89 percent of the 136,044 square feet of built space are mixed-use buildings, with retail buildings next occupying 11 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that United American Land owned at least 50 commercial properties with 245 residential units in New York City with 970,932 square feet and a city-determined market value of $354 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $417.3 million in debt, with top three lenders as Signature Bank, Goldman Sachs, and Israel Discount Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 37 percent of the 970,932 square feet of built space are mixed-use properties, with elevator properties next occupying 23 percent of the space. The bulk, or 57 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 26 percent of the space.

Direct link to Acris document. link