United Construction & Dev. signs $38.2M acquisition loan with Maxim for LIC dev site

United Construction & Development Group through the entity L Island City LLC as borrower signed a acquisition loan with lender Maxim Capital Group through the entity Maxim Credit Group, LLC valued at $38.2 million for the development parcel (V1) at 42-50 24th Street in Long Island City, Queens.
The deal closed on February 22, 2024 and was recorded on March 11, 2024. The prior lender was Citibank which held debt that had an original loan amount of $50 million.
The property has zero square feet of built space and 255,304 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 255,304 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per buildable square foot is $149 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 Construction & Development Group bought the property on February 22, 2024, for $57.5 million. The signatory for United Construction & Development Group was Jiashu Xu. The signatory for Maxim Capital Group was Eric Sadkin. United Construction closed on the purchase the same day but this loan was recorded several days after the deed was recorded.

The property

The parcel has frontage of 186 feet and is 179 feet deep with a total lot size of 33,950 square feet. The zoning is M1-5/R9 which allows for up to 5 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing and up to 7.52 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $3.5 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

On the lot, there is one active new building construction project for a 240-unit, 245,887 square-foot R-2 building. The project was submitted by Fisher Brothers and filed by Alex Adams with plans filed October 18, 2019 and permitted November 4, 2020.

The neighborhood

In Long Island City, The bulk, or 32 percent of the 60.1 million square feet of commercial built space are industrial buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 31 percent of the space. In sales, Long Island City has the 7th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.5 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Long Island City is the 6th most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 6.1 million 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 three of the six commercial properties representing 3,000 square feet of the 3,000 square feet. The two identified owners are Werwaiss Properties and United Construction & Development Group.
On the tax block, there were three new building construction projects totaling 409,034 square feet. The largest is a 240-unit, 245,887 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Fisher Brothers and filed by Alex Adams with plans filed October 18, 2019 and permitted November 4, 2020. The second largest is a 240-unit, 163,147 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Werwaiss Properties and filed by Gretchen Werwaiss with plans filed July 15, 2021 and permitted March 24, 2022.

The majority, or 100 percent of the 3,000 square feet of built space are industrial buildings, with development buildings next occupying 0 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that United Construction & Development Group owned at least 18 commercial properties with 317 residential units in New York City with 999,508 square feet and a city-determined market value of $101.5 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $577.5 million in debt, with top three lenders as Bank of China, Centennial Bank, and Maxim Capital Group respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 42 percent of the 999,508 square feet of built space are O8 properties, with elevator properties next occupying 30 percent of the space. They are all located in Queens.

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