Urban Standard Capital sells 171 Bowery for $6.85M

UPDATED WITH CORRECTION: Seth Weissman’s Urban Standard Capital sold 171 Bowery in the Lower East Side of Manhattan following a foreclosure process, about 20 months after the firm filed a pre-foreclosure action at the property alleging a loan with an original principal of $7 million was in default. The auction took place on September 13, 2023, and Urban Standard Capital assigned its contract to a third party buyer for $6.85 million, Dao Hui Lin. The sale has not yet been recorded in city property records. Dao Hui Lin owns 141 Chrystie Street which abuts 171 Bowery in the center of the block.

Urban Standard Capital provided the $7 million loan to the prior owner, Grant Shapolsky of Prime Manhattan Development, in April 2019. The May 2022 pre-foreclosure followed a series of extensions and amendments provided to the borrower, which moved the original due date of the one-year loan from February 1, 2020 to May 31, 2022, according to court records.

Grant Shapolsky of Prime Manhattan Development, according to court records, consented to the foreclosure sale. The total judgment lien was $9.6 million as of mid-2023, according to the notice of sale, and the upset price was $11.7 million.

Case 850125/2022 LINK

On the site, the prior owner sought to demolish and build a new building, but that has not occurred. Prime Manhattan Development through the entity MM Bowery LLC submitted a new building construction project for a 10,845 square-foot business (B) building at 171 Bowery in Lower East Side, Manhattan. The plan was filed with the New York City Department of Buildings on January 24, 2019 under job number 121204678. It calls for the construction of a five-story building. The project is described in the filing as: construction of new 5-story building.

The property

The existing mixed-use building with 3 residential units in Lower East Side has 5,696 square feet of built space and 3,128 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 8,820 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 20 feet and is 126 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,564 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is C6-1 which allows for up to 6 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 3.44 times FAR for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1.9 million.

Prior sales and revenue

This property was sold for $8.7 million to Grant Shapolsky of Prime Manhattan Development on June 14, 2017.

The 5,696-square-foot property generated revenue of $297,666 or $52 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

Violations and lawsuits

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

The property was involved in one lawsuit and zero bankruptcies over the past two years. The suit was a $7 million commercial foreclosure concerning a loan filed on June 17, 2022, by Urban Standard Capital against Grant Shapolsky and Prime Manhattan Development.

The neighborhood

In Lower East Side, The majority, or 51 percent of the 23.8 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 21 percent of the space. In sales, Lower East Side has near average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $451 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 21st highest in Manhattan. For development, Lower East Side has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 21st highest in Manhattan. It had 1.3 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.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of four of the 19 commercial properties representing 58,754 square feet of the 201,341 square feet. The largest owner is Barry Lipsitz, followed by Horizon Group and then Marx Realty & Improvement. On the tax block, there were two new building construction projects totaling 57,757 square feet. The largest is a 46-unit, 46,912 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Brian Hamburger with plans filed August 28, 2023 and it has not been permitted yet. The second largest is a 10,845 square-foot business (B) building submitted by Hannah Rademaker with plans filed January 24, 2019 and it has not been permitted yet.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 171 Bowery, PincusCo identified six commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those six items, one was in new building development. It was a new building permit application filed on April 21, 2022 for a 72,441-square-foot business (B) building at 156 Bowery. One of those six items was a sale which Horizon Group bought the 12,696-square-foot, one-unit industrial (E9) on 324 Broome Street for $6.5 million from Ronald Tien on October 17, 2023. Of those six items, four were loans above $5 million totaling $186.5 million. The most recent of the four was Lightstone Group in which borrowed $110 million from Apollo Global Management secured by the 100,870-square-foot, two-unit hotel (H2) on 145-147 Bowery on December 11, 2023.

Correction: An earlier version of this post reported that Urban Standard Capital took title to the property, but in fact it assigned the contract to the new buyer, Dao Hui Lin.

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