Yaakov Klein signs $53M refi loan with Bank of America for 96-unit CW Realty property in Williamsburg

Yaakov Klein through the entity 187 Kent LLC as borrower signed a loan with lender Bank of America valued at $53 million for the 96-unit residential elevator building (D7) at 187 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on December 16, 2022 and was recorded on December 20, 2022. The property has 75,729 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $699 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.)
Cheskie Weisz’s CW Realty bought the property on March 16, 2017, for $42.5 million. The signatory for Yaakov Klein was Yaakov Klein. The signatory for Bank of America was Cathey VanHee. Yaakov Klein is a ground lease tenant of fee owner CW Realty and Cheskie Weisz, the owner.

Prior sales and revenue

The owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Perl Weisz, head officer and Abraham Weider, agent. The business entity is 187 Kent Owner Llc. The 75,729-square-foot property generated revenue of $2.1 million or $27 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 187 Kent Avenue parcel has frontage of 95 feet and is 192 feet deep with a total lot size of 16,666 square feet. The zoning is M1-2/R6A which allows for up to 2 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing and up to 3 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $12.2 million.The most recent loan totaled $61.7 million and was provided by UMB Bank|Kent House (Brooklyn, NY) (Senior Note) Lease-Backed Pass-Through Trust on July 29, 2022.

Violations and lawsuits

The property was involved in two lawsuits and zero bankruptcies over the past two years. The highest value suit was a $77.7 million commercial foreclosure concerning a loan filed on July 19, 2021, by Invictus Real Estate Partners against CW Realty. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received four housing violations in the last year.

Development

For the tax lot building, it received its initial certificate of occupancy on September 9, 2020.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of three of the 15 commercial properties representing 112,178 square feet of the 188,253 square feet. The two identified owners are Simkho Aranbayev and CW Realty Group.
On the tax block, there is a building plan for a 24-unit, 17,155-square-foot R-2 building developed by Gabriel Grunblatt with plans filed September 29, 2020 and permitted June 1, 2022.

The majority, or 59 percent of the 177,706 square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with industrial buildings next occupying 22 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Yaakov Klein owned at least two commercial properties in New York City with 106,241 square feet and a city-determined market value of $14.1 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $35.1 million in debt, borrowed from Peapack-Gladstone Bank and Bank of Princeton. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 63 percent of the 106,241 square feet of built space are M4 properties, with elevator properties next occupying 37 percent of the space. They are all located in Brooklyn.

Direct link to Acris document. link