United Construction & Development pays Fisher Brothers, Hakim Organization $57.5M for LIC dev site

United Construction & Development Group, led by Jiashu Xu, paid $57.5 million to a joint venture including Fisher Brothers and the Hakim Organization for the development site at 42-50 24th Street in Long Island City, Queens, where the sellers filed plans in 2019 for a 240-unit, 245,877-square-foot residential tower, which was then changed to a mixed-use building with 83 residential units and and 372 hotel units with a total of about 372,145 square feet.

The sale closed on February 22, 2024 and was recorded on March 6, 2024. The contract was signed on November 21, 2023. The seller entity was QPT 24th Street Owner LLC and the buyer entity was L Island City LLC. The signatories for the sellers were Winston Fisher and Kenneth Fisher. The signatory for the buyer was Jiashu Xu, who is also known as Chris Xu.

As part of the transaction, United Construction & Development Group assumed a loan with an original principal of $50 million from the sellers. The loan under Fisher Brothers and Hakim Organization had been held by Citibank, and that lender assigned it to Maxim Capital Group, which is now the current lender. The property records did not disclose the current outstanding principal of the loan.

It was unclear if the buyers would move forward with the sellers plans or start again. The project is not a 421a building.

United Construction & Development Group is one of the most active builders in New York City, with a focus in Flushing and Long Island City. Projects filed within the past year include 48 units at 141-05 32nd Avenue, 47 units at 140-28 31st Drive and 217 units at 24-03 43rd Avenue.

A CBRE team led by Doug Middleton and Daniel Kaplan represented the sellers in this Long Island City sale, according to sources.

Hakim Organization and Property Markets Group bought the site in December 2015 for $69 million. Fisher Brothers is now a partner, and it is unclear if PMG remained involved as a seller.

The property

The vacant 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.

Development

Fisher Brothers submitted a new building construction project for a 240-unit, 245,887 square-foot residential (R-2) building at 42-50 24th Street. The plan was filed on October 18, 2019. It calls for the construction of a 447-foot tall, 35-story building and was filed with the New York City Department of Buildings under job number 420666363.

Violations and lawsuits

According to city public data, the property has not received any significant violations in the last year.

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

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 8th 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 5th most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 7.4 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 12 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of two of the six commercial properties representing 3,000 square feet of the 3,000 square feet. The identified owner is Werwaiss Properties. 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 surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 42-63 23 Street, PincusCo identified four commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those four items, two were sales above $5 million totaling $226 million. The most recent of the two was NYC School Construction Authority and NYC Department of Education which bought the 97,650-square-foot, one-unit office building (O2) on 23-10 43rd Avenue for $50 million from Stawski Partners on April 10, 2023. Of those four items, two were loans above $5 million totaling $610 million. The most recent of the two was Werwaiss Properties in which borrowed $110 million from AIG secured by the 3,000-square-foot, two-unit industrial (F5) on 23-02 42nd Road and one other property on March 9, 2023.

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