Wharton Properties sells mixed-use in Greenwich Village to Junction Management for $9.3M

Junction Management through the entity 300 East 69th Street LLC paid $9.3 million to Jeff Sutton’s Wharton Properties through the entity 275 Bleecker Street LLC for the four-unit mixed-use building (S4) at 275 Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, Manhattan.
The deal closed on November 17, 2023 and was recorded on December 6, 2023. The property has 4,519 square feet of built space and 1,803 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 6,329 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $2,057 and the price per buildable square foot is $1,469 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 seller bought the property on March 10, 2016, for $11 million. The signatory for Wharton Properties was Jeff Sutton. The signatory for Junction Management was Stella Sklias. The contract date was August 28, 2023.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Junction Management had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Wharton Properties purchased two properties in two transactions for a total of $9.5 million and sold six properties in six transactions for a total of $61.9 million over the same time period. The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Eric Setton, head officer and Jay Gelb, site manager. The business entity is 275 Bleecker Street LLC.

The property

The mixed-use building with 4 residential units in Greenwich Village has 4,519 square feet of built space and 1,803 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 6,329 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 23 feet and is 80 feet deep with a total lot size of 1,840 square feet. The zoning is R7-2 which allows for up to 3.44 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The property is in the Greenwich Village Historic District Extension II. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $4.7 million.

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 five DOB violations in the last year.

Development

There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $1 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Greenwich Village, The bulk, or 24 percent of the 22.4 million square feet of commercial built space are specialty buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 17 percent of the space. In sales, Greenwich Village has 3.2 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $1.1 billion in sales volume in the last two years and is the 11th highest in Manhattan. For development, Greenwich Village has 3.1 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 9th highest in Manhattan. It had 3.1 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 14 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 17 of the 49 commercial properties representing 208,246 square feet of the 496,759 square feet. The largest owner is Wharton Properties, followed by Tim Vetrero and then Shirley Schapiro.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 56 percent of the 496,759 square feet of built space are walkup buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 23 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Wharton Properties owned at least 87 commercial properties with 194 residential units in New York City with 3,774,351 square feet and a city-determined market value of $2 billion. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $705.8 million in debt, with top three lenders as Aareal Capital, JPMorgan Chase, and Valley National Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 72 percent of the 3,774,351 square feet of built space are office properties, with retail properties next occupying 17 percent of the space. The bulk, or 87 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 10 percent of the space.

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