United American Land signs $9M refi for retail, office in NoHo

The Laboz family’s United American Land through the entity Thor 734 Broadway LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender Metropolitan Commercial Bank valued at $9 million for the five-unit office building (O5) at 734 Broadway in NoHo, Manhattan.
The deal closed on October 10, 2024 and was recorded on October 17, 2024. The prior lender was Blackstone Group (as buyer of Signature Bank loans) which held debt that had an original loan amount of $13.5 million. The property has 13,990 square feet of built space and 2,667 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 16,670 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $643 and the price per buildable square foot is $539 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.)
United American Land and Joseph Sitt’s Thor Equities bought the property on June 4, 2015, for $17 million. The signatory for United American Land was Albert Laboz. The signatory for Metropolitan Commercial Bank was Ross Dahmen and Craig Zajac. It is unclear if Thor Equities retains a stake in the property.

The property

The office building with 5 residential units in NoHo has 13,990 square feet of built space and 2,667 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 16,670 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 24 feet and is 137 feet deep with a total lot size of 3,334 square feet. The property is in the NoHo Historic District. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $6.1 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 one DOB violation, $625 in ECB penalties, and $1,075 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

On the lot, there is one active major alteration construction project, 123185383, for a five-unit, 13,397 square-foot R-2 building. The project was submitted by Albert Laboz with plans filed October 2, 2017 and permitted March 14, 2018.

The neighborhood

In NoHo, The majority, or 55 percent of the 3.8 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 14 percent of the space. In sales, NoHo has 1.2 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $314.7 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 24th highest in Manhattan. For development, NoHo has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 400,498 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 10 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of six of the 15 commercial properties representing 732,222 square feet of the 1,165,049 square feet. The largest owner is New York University, followed by Alan Manocherian and then Superior Management.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 75 percent of the 1.2 million square feet of built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 15 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that United American Land owned at least 49 commercial properties with 245 residential units in New York City with 956,942 square feet and a city-determined market value of $347.9 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $408.3 million in debt, with top three lenders as Signature Bank, Goldman Sachs, and Israel Discount Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 36 percent of the 956,942 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.

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