United Jewish Appeal-Federation pays $10.9M to Leser Group for office in Borough Park

The nonprofit United Jewish Appeal-Federation paid $10.9 million to the Leser Group through the entity 13 59&60th Building LLC for the office building (O5) at 1271 60th Street in Borough Park, Brooklyn. The expected use is owner-occupied.
The deal closed on August 16, 2024 and was recorded on August 22, 2024. The property has 13,600 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $804 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 Leser Group was Abraham Leser. The signatory for United Jewish Appeal-Federation was Luz Liebeskind. The contract date was October 21, 2021.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer United Jewish Appeal-Federation had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Leser Group purchased 11 properties in one transaction for a total of $8.5 million and sold four properties in two transactions for a total of $39.4 million over the same time period. The 13,600-square-foot property generated revenue of $149,875 or $11 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The office building in Borough Park has 13,600 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 80 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 8,012 square feet. The zoning is M1-1 which allows for up to 1 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $813,000. The most recent loan totaled $6 million and was provided by L&L Capital Partners on February 23, 2023.

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 $2,500 in ECB penalties and $4,700 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 Borough Park, The bulk, or 25 percent of the 23.3 million square feet of commercial built space are specialty buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 21 percent of the space. In sales, Borough Park has 2.2 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $571.9 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 11th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Borough Park has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 18th highest in Brooklyn. It had 1.1 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 5 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other office buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of nine of the 19 commercial properties representing 35,480 square feet of the 63,051 square feet. The largest owner is Yehoshia Sturm, followed by Shimon Kon and then Jin Hu.
On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 3,606 square feet. It is a three-unit, 3,606 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by David Weisz with plans filed September 4, 2019 and permitted November 17, 2021.

The majority, or 33 percent of the 63,051 square feet of built space are office buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 30 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Leser Group owned at least 30 commercial properties with 418 residential units in New York City with 1,024,924 square feet and a city-determined market value of $96.2 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $701.8 million in debt, with top three lenders as UMB Bank, Tel Aviv Stock Exchange bondholders, and Ponce Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 38 percent of the 1,024,924 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with specialty properties next occupying 22 percent of the space. The bulk, or 61 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Bronx next at 32 percent of the space.

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