United Construction & Development signs $39.5M refi with New Era Life for LIC dev site

United Construction & Development Group through the entity Lic Venture Capital LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender New Era Life Insurance through the entity New Era Life Insurance Company valued at $39.5 million for the development site (V1) at 41-50 21st Street in Long Island City, Queens.
The deal closed on November 14, 2025 and was recorded on December 4, 2025. The prior lender was New Era Life Insurance which held debt that had an original loan amount of $27.5 million.The property has zero square feet of built space and 218,500 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 218,500 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per buildable square foot is $180 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 owner bought the property in January 2007, for $12.75 million. The signatory for United Construction & Development Group was Jiashu Xu . The signatory for New Era Life Insurance was Bill S. Chen .

The property

The parcel has frontage of 196 feet and is 211 feet deep with a total lot size of 43,700 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-5 which allows for up to 5 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $9.5 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 received $1,000 in ECB penalties and $2,312 in OATH penalties 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 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 3.2 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $955.2 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the highest in Queens. For development, Long Island City is the 8th most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 6.4 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 11 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of five of the six commercial properties representing 371,772 square feet of the 371,772 square feet. The largest owner is Storage Deluxe, followed by United Construction & Development Group and then Kaushik Patel.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 89 percent of the 371,772 square feet of built space are industrial buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 11 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that United Construction & Development Group owned at least 20 commercial properties with 422 residential units in New York City with 1,257,571 square feet and a city-determined market value of $133.6 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $846.5 million in debt, with top three lenders as Bank of China, New Era Life Insurance Company, and Centennial Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 33 percent of the 1,257,571 square feet of built space are O8 properties, with elevator properties next occupying 24 percent of the space. The bulk, or 94 percent of the built space, is in Queens, with Brooklyn next at 6 percent of the space.

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