Watermark, Yoel Werzberger sign $24M refi for newly built 46-unit rental in Gowanus

Watermark Capital Group, led by Wolfe Landau, and Yoel Werzberger, through the entity 4th Avenue Qozb LLC as borrower, signed a refi loan with lender Popular Bank valued at $24 million for the 46-unit residential elevator building (D6) at 584 4th Avenue in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on June 27, 2024 and was recorded on July 5, 2024. The prior lender was Popular Bank which held debt that had an original loan amount of $19 million. The property has 41,013 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $585 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 owners bought the property on June 3, 2022, for $5.8 million. The signatory for Watermark Capital Group and Yoel Werzberger was Marc Chemtob.

The property

The residential elevator building with 46 residential units in Gowanus has 41,013 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 72 feet and is 104 feet deep with a total lot size of 6,499 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is R8A which allows for up to 6.02 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $748,000. The most recent loan totaled $19 million and was provided by Popular Bank on August 11, 2022.

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 one DOB violation and $300 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

For the tax lot building, it received its initial certificate of occupancy on April 23, 2024. There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $1 million on this tax lot.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of seven of the 22 commercial properties representing 33,376 square feet of the 185,993 square feet. The largest owner is Xu Lu, followed by Watermark Capital Group and then Virgil Chong.
On the tax block, there were four new building construction projects totaling 13,700 square feet. The largest is a four-unit, 5,122 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Jack Jianchao Cheng and filed by Jack Cheng with plans filed March 28, 2016 and permitted April 25, 2019. The second largest is a four-unit, 5,074 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Carolina Garcia Paris|Anish Karyat|Jorge Mastropietro|Pedro Moreno-Mengibar and filed by Jorge Mastropietro with plans filed December 18, 2014 and permitted March 8, 2017.

The majority, or 67 percent of the 185,993 square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 24 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Watermark Capital Group owned at least 124 commercial properties with 1,448 residential units in New York City with 1,426,235 square feet and a city-determined market value of $277.8 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $141 million in debt, with top three lenders as BridgeCity Capital, Signature Bank, and Bridge City Funding respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 58 percent of the 1,426,235 square feet of built space are walkup properties, with elevator properties next occupying 21 percent of the space. The bulk, or 93 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Queens next at 7 percent of the space.

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