Verizon pays $30.9M for industrial in East Williamsburg

The telecommunications company Verizon through the entity Verizon New York Inc. paid $30.9 million to Faizurahman Aminy, Abdul W. Aziz, and Ahmad Aziz through the entity 131 Morgan Holding Corp. for the industrial building (E1) at 131 Morgan Avenue in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on December 15, 2022 and was recorded on December 23, 2022. The property has 56,500 square feet of built space and 8,489 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 65,300 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $546 and the price per buildable square foot is $472 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 Faizurahman Aminy, Abdul W. Aziz, and Ahmad Aziz was Faizurahman Aminy. The signatory for Verizon was Noah A. Julius. Abdul W. Aziz was president, Ahmad Aziz secretary and Faizurahman Aminy treasurer in recent property filings.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer Verizon purchased six properties in three transactions for a total of $145.7 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Faizurahman Aminy had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The 56,500-square-foot property generated revenue of $881,292 or $16 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 131 Morgan Avenue parcel has frontage of 201 feet and is 300 feet deep with a total lot size of 65,300 square feet. The lot is irregular. 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 $3.7 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 $650 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 East Williamsburg, the majority, or 63 percent of the 16.9 million square feet of commercial built space are industrial buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 10 percent of the space. In sales, East Williamsburg has 1.3 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $442.7 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 16th highest in Brooklyn. For development, East Williamsburg has 1.2 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 14th highest in Brooklyn. It had 1.3 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 8 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 10 of the 24 commercial properties representing 266,988 square feet of the 673,833 square feet. The largest owner is Zvi Steven Landman, followed by Steel Equities and then Long Island Rail Road.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 63 percent of the 673,833 square feet of built space are industrial buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 25 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Verizon owned at least 53 commercial properties in New York City with 410,896 square feet and a city-determined market value of $62.4 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 64 percent of the 410,896 square feet of built space are industrial properties, with office properties next occupying 31 percent of the space. The bulk, or 39 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 27 percent of the space.

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