Verivia signs $11.3M refi loan with Signature Bank for residential walkup in Crown Heights

The family investment company Verivia through the entity 1045 Union Associates LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender Signature Bank valued at $11.3 million for the 32-unit residential walkup building at 820 Franklin Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on April 29, 2022 and was recorded on May 17, 2022. The prior lender was Amerant Bank which held debt that had an original loan amount of $12 million. The property has 34,910 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $323 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 on May 1, 2015, for $14.5 million. The signatory for Verivia was Eric Mann. The signatory for Signature Bank was Konstantinos Venetsanakos. Verivia describes itself as a private real estate firm with a family office history. Eric Mann is an executive with the Mann Group, a large family owned firm with an office in Brooklyn.

Prior sales and revenue

The owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Eric Mann, head officer and Robert Trezza, agent. The business entities are L Rose Realty Inc and 1045 Union Associates, Llc.

The property

The 820 Franklin Avenue parcel has frontage of 62 feet and is 125 feet deep with a total lot size of 7,750 square feet. The zoning is R6A which allows for up to 3 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $5 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property since September of 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received $1,600 in ECB penalties, five housing violations, and $1,900 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 $5 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Crown Heights, the bulk, or 27 percent of the 66.4 million square feet of commercial built space are residential elevator buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 27 percent of the space. In sales, Crown Heights has 1.2 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $336.3 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 11th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Crown Heights has 1.7 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 12th highest in Brooklyn. It had 1.6 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 2 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There were seven pre-foreclosure suit filed among other residential walkup buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of two of the nine commercial properties representing 61,752 square feet of the 365,392 square feet. The two identified owners are Abraham Tyberg and Abraham Schwartz. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 57 percent of the 382,359 square feet of built space are residential elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 25 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 820 Franklin Avenue, PincusCo identified three commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those three items, three were loans above $5 million totaling $27.1 million. The most recent of the three was Abraham Tyberg which borrowed $7.2 million from JPMorgan Chase secured by the 42,984-square-foot, 48-unit rental (D1) on 302 Eastern Parkway on August 9, 2021.

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