Yoel Goldman puts stalled Crown Heights hotel valued at $14M in bankruptcy

Yoel Goldman, the founder of the highly litigated investment firm All Year Management, filed a chapter 11 petition in Brooklyn on New Year’s Eve to place his $14 million stalled 100-key hotel development at 1550 Bedford Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, into bankruptcy as five contractors have filed suits seeking to foreclose on mechanics’ liens. The property, at the corner of Bedford Avenue and Eastern Parkway, is also the security for a loan Gary Katz’s Downtown Capital Partners provided in 2018, city property records show, but there is no pre-foreclosure filing on that loan, a review of court records shows.

Goldman estimates the property to be worth $14 million, he says in the filing. The site has $5.4 million in secured and unsecured liabilities, the petition records show. The Downtown Capital Partners loan is recorded at $10 million but the filing indicates only $3 million currently secured by this project.

Goldman’s entity 1550 Bedford Ave LLC bought the building in November 2014 for $7.2 million, with Joshua Farkas signing on behalf of the purchaser at the time.

All Year Management was placed in bankruptcy in 2021 and has been party to a large amount of litigation over the past several years.

Developer Yoel Schwimmer, on behalf of All Year Management, submitted a new building construction project for a 100-unit, 38,356 square-foot hotel (R-1) building with the New York City Department of Buildings on July 1, 2016 under job number 321413412 and was permitted on July 19, 2018. It calls for the construction of a five-story building. The project is described in the filing as: proposed new 5-story hotel and retail building. The project is currently listed as “job on hold” by the Department of Buildings.

1550 Bedford Ave Zoning ZD1 pdf

The bankruptcy filing has several typos and inconsistencies related to liabilities, for instance in one portion of the filing it says the Downtown Capital Partners loan is $30 million, but that appears to be a typo for $3 million, since the total liabilities are listed as $3.24 million in the summary. However that figure itself is an addition error, and the actual amount of secured and unsecured liabilities is $5.4 million, which is the total of secured debt ($3 million loan, plus $981,094 in mechanics’ liens) and a total of $1,428,310 in unsecured liabilities.

The property

The hotel building in Crown Heights has 61,848 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 192 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 19,200 square feet. The zoning is C8-2 which allows for up to 2 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $4.1 million.

Prior sales and revenue

This property was sold for $7.2 million on November 19, 2014.

Violations and lawsuits

According to city public data, the property has received $57,560 in ECB penalties and $60,260 in OATH penalties in the last year.

The neighborhood

In Crown Heights, The bulk, or 39 percent of the 46.5 million square feet of commercial built space are walkup buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 36 percent of the space. In sales, Crown Heights has near average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $533.8 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 10th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Crown Heights has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 9th highest in Brooklyn. It had 1.7 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 4 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of eight of the 11 commercial properties representing 238,545 square feet of the 316,733 square feet. The largest owner is Andrew Weber, followed by Capani Managment and then Larry Malitzky. On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 38,356 square feet. It is a 100-unit, 38,356 square-foot hotel/dormitory/shelter (R-1) building submitted by Yoel Schwimmer and filed by Yoel Schwimmer with plans filed July 1, 2016 and permitted July 19, 2018.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 1564 Bedford Avenue, PincusCo identified two commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. One of those two items was a sale which Metropolitan Transportation Authority bought the 55,000-square-foot, two-unit industrial (G2) on 1590 Bedford Avenue for $25.2 million from Taormina Holding on April 3, 2024. One of those two items was a loan which PH Realty Capital, Rockledge, and Alma Realty borrowed $54 million from Prime Finance secured by the 101,100-square-foot, 24-unit rental (C1) on 1115 Union Street and nine other properties on August 1, 2024.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page and link to DOB NOW portal.