William Gottlieb Real Estate adds to West Village portfolio with $6M purchase

William Gottlieb Real Estate is adding another building to their expansive West Village portfolio after purchasing the five-story, five-unit mixed-use building at 391 West Street from Wendy Doremus for $6.05 million. The firm run by Neil Bender also owns 394 West Street, which is separated by 391 West Street by 392 West Street, owned by L. Bourgeois LLC.

The deal closed on February 16, 2022 and was recorded on March 3, 2022.

Earlier in the year, William Gottlieb partnered with Aurora Capital Associates to secure a $37 million construction loan for two properties including the building at 384 West Street and development site at 144 Barrow Street. The buildings at 391 and 394 West Street, as well as adjacent 392 and 388 West Street are designated landmarks.

Neil Bender was the signatory for William Gottlieb Real Estate through the entity 391 West Street, LLC. Wendy Doremus was the signatory for Eight Weehawken LLC as the seller.

The property at 391 West Street has 4,075 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,484 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 4,075-square-foot property generated revenue of $206,114 or $51 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

In West Village, the bulk, or 35 percent of the 15.7 million square feet of built space are residential elevator buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 18 percent of the space. In sales, West Village has 2.5 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $690.5 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 16th highest in Manhattan.

For development, West Village has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 152,386 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 0.97 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other mixed-use buildings in the past 12 months.

On the tax block, the majority, or 48 percent of the 346,087 square feet of built space are residential elevator buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 19 percent of the space.

Within a 400-foot radius of 391 West Street, Pincusco identified 11 commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those 11 items, one was in new building development. It was a new building permit issued on May 24, 2021 for a 24,806-square-foot R-2 building with 16 residential units at 144 Barrow St.

Of those 11 items, two were for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. They were two permit applications with a total initial cost of $850,000. The most recent of these two items was the filing on August 18, 2021 for a 8,978-square-foot B building with 0 residential units at 396 West Street.

Of those 11 items, five were sales above $5 million totaling $91.2 million. The most recent of the five was John Nesbitt which bought one condo unit in the 3,234-square-foot, 92-unit condo building (R4) on 150 Charles Street for $11.8 million from 150 Charles Street 7BN LLC on February 28, 2022.

Of those 11 items, three were loans above $5 million totaling $65.6 million. The most recent of the three was William Gottlieb Real Estate which borrowed $37 million from Bank OZK secured by the 24,027-square-foot, two-unit hotel (H9) on 384 West Street and one other property on January 20, 2022.

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