Zar Property NY signs $82M refi with Signature Bank for office in Midtown West

Zar Property NY through the entity West 54th Street LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender Signature Bank valued at $82 million for the midblock office building at 250 West 54th Street in Midtown West, Manhattan.
The deal closed on March 9, 2022 and was recorded on March 30, 2022. The prior lender was Signature Bank which held debt that had an original loan amount of $58 million.

The property has 134,441 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $609 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 owner bought the property on February 9, 2017, for $83.1 million. The signatory for Zar Property NY was Essagh Dario Zar. The signatory for Signature Bank was Kenneth A. Stagnari. The financing includes $28.97 million in new debt.

Prior sales and revenue

The 134,441-square-foot property generated revenue of $3.8 million or $28 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 244 West 54th Street parcel has frontage of 125 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 11,750 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is C6-5 which allows for up to 10 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 10 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $17.8 million.

Violations and lawsuits

The property was not involved in any lawsuits or bankruptcies in the past years. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received two DOB violations and $375 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 Midtown West, the majority, or 69 percent of the 82.2 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 13 percent of the space. In sales, Midtown West has the 7th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.6 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Midtown West is the 3rd most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 8.5 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 10 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other office buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of two of the 22 commercial properties representing 76,500 square feet of the 1,400,274 square feet. The two identified owners are Allied Partners and Shmuel Baror. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 86 percent of the 1 million square feet of built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 8 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 244 West 54th Street, Pincusco identified four commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those four items, one was in new building development. It was a new building permit application filed on April 21, 2021 for a 242,759-square-foot R-1 building with 670 residential units at 1710 Broadway.
Of those four items, three were loans above $5 million totaling $205.6 million. The most recent of the three was Algin Management which borrowed $145.6 million from New York Life Insurance Company secured by the 542,276-square-foot, 428-unit rental (D8) on 242 West 53rd Street on December 23, 2021.

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