Urban View files to convert commercial to 10-unit, 7-story residential in Lenox Hill

Robert Michaeli of Urban View Development Group through the entity Brooklyn B Company Group submitted a major alteration application to convert a three-story commercial building to a 10-unit and seven-story residential building at 420 East 75th Street in Lenox Hill, Manhattan. The plan was filed with the New York City Department of Buildings on October 20, 2022 under job number M07997749. It call for the increase in size of the building from a three-story building with no dwelling units to a seven-story building with 10 dwelling units. The project is described in the filing as: Vertical enlargement of an existing 2 story non conforming commercial use building to a 7 story residential building.
The parcel has two structures, one fronting East 75th Street with two stories, and an interior building with three stories.

Urban View bought the property, using the address 418 East 75th Street, in April 2022 for $5.75 million.

The property

The 420 East 75th Street parcel has frontage of 37 feet and is 102 feet deep with a total lot size of 3,831 square feet. The zoning is R8B which allows for up to 4 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1.6 million.

Prior sales and revenue

The mixed-use building in Lenox Hill has 6,996 square feet of built space and 8,313 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 15,324 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The property is owned by Urban View Development Group.

Violations and lawsuits

According to city public data, the property has received $2,260 in OATH penalties in the last year.

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property since September of 2020.

The neighborhood

In Lenox Hill, the bulk, or 35 percent of the 51.9 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 28 percent of the space. In sales, Lenox Hill has the highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $3.3 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Lenox Hill has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 13th highest in Manhattan. It had 1.7 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 3 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 11 of the 22 commercial properties representing 134,373 square feet of the 257,740 square feet. The largest owner is Tissa Management, followed by Friedman Management and then Mike Elsayed. On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 128,205 square feet. It is a 31-unit, 128,205 square-foot R-2 building developed by Dmitri Konon with plans filed November 3, 2021 and it has not been permitted yet.

The owner

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Urban View Development Group owned at least 13 commercial properties in New York City with 106,257 square feet and a city-determined market value of $17 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $43.8 million in debt, with top three lenders as Terra Solid Capital, Citibank, and Goldman Sachs respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 33 percent of the 106,257 square feet of built space are walkup properties, with elevator properties next occupying 31 percent of the space. The bulk, or 73 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Manhattan next at 22 percent of the space.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 420 East 75th Street, Pincusco identified nine commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those nine items, four were sales above $5 million totaling $55.9 million. The most recent of the four was Alonzo Properties NYC which bought the 6,910-square-foot, three-unit mixed-use building (K2) on 430 East 75th Street for $6 million from Downtown Capital on April 15, 2022. Of those nine items, five were loans above $5 million totaling $119.2 million. The most recent of the five was S.W. Management which borrowed $5.1 million from New York Community Bank secured by the 14,280-square-foot, 27-unit rental (C4) on 416 East 74th Street on August 23, 2022.

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