Yi Hua Chen pays $24.6M to Soung Eun Hong for three properties in Flushing

Yi Hua Chen through the entity Vernon 298 LLC paid $24.6 million to Soung Eun Hong through the entity Rainier Group Of New York, LLC for mixed-use building (K4) at 32-02 Linden Place in Flushing, Queens, industrial building (G7) at 32-11 Farrington Street in Flushing, Queens, and industrial building (G7) at 32-09 Farrington Street in Flushing, Queens.
George Xu’s Century Development Group is developing a 98-unit residential project on the south end of this city block.
The deal closed on February 1, 2023 and was recorded on February 28, 2023. The three properties have 32,908 square feet of built space and 19,662 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 52,500 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $748 and the price per buildable square foot is $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 signatory for Soung Eun Hong was Soung Eun Hong. The signatory for Yi Hua Chen was Yi Hua Chen. The contract date is October 21, 2021. The seller provided a $13 million purchase money loan.

Because multiple properties have been transacted, some of the following sections will follow the property with the largest assessed value, which in this case, is the property on 32-02 Linden Place.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has no record that the buyer Yi Hua Chen had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Soung Eun Hong had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. Out of the three properties, one with a total of 32,908 square feet of built space generated revenue of $1.1 million per year.

The property

The 32-02 Linden Place parcel has frontage of 250 feet and is 275 feet deep with a total lot size of 46,250 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 $5.1 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the properties since September of 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the properties have received $15,000 in ECB penalties and $15,000 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 Flushing, the bulk, or 45 percent of the 37.8 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 20 percent of the space. In sales, Flushing has 1.9 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $643.5 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 4th highest in Queens. For development, Flushing has 2.6 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 6th highest in Queens. It had 2.6 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 7 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On the tax block of 32-02 Linden Place, PincusCo has identified the owners of three of the 29 commercial properties representing 30,170 square feet of the 243,405 square feet. The largest owner is Ravinder Chopra, followed by Joseph Vitulli Jr. and then Century Development Group.
On the tax block, there were two new building construction projects totaling 75,509 square feet. The largest is a 98-unit, 72,446-square-foot R-2 building developed by George Jiapeng Xu with plans filed January 4, 2023 and it has not been permitted yet.The second largest is a 3,063-square-foot U building developed by Kyong Park with plans filed January 13, 2017 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 58 percent of the 243,405 square feet of built space are mixed-use buildings, with industrial buildings next occupying 31 percent of the space.

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