Zhi Li Pan pays $7.4M for residential walkup in Chinatown

Zhi Li Pan through the entity Baxter Realty Group LLC paid $7.4 million to Michael Messi through the entity Canbax Realty Corp. for midblock 24-unit residential walkup building at 91-93 Baxter Street in Chinatown, Manhattan.
The deal closed on April 29, 2022 and was recorded on May 10, 2022. The property has 27,528 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $268 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 Michael Messi was Michael Messi. The signatory for Zhi Li Pan was Zhi Li Pan.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has records that the buyer Zhi Li Pan purchased one property in one transaction for a total of $4.9 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Michael Messi purchased one property in one transaction for a total of $21.5 million and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Joseph Forlini, head officer and Alfred Forlini, officer. The business entity is Canbax Realty Corporation. The 27,528-square-foot property generated revenue of $854,418 or $31 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 91-93 Baxter Street parcel has frontage of 50 feet and is 101 feet deep with a total lot size of 5,060 square feet. The zoning is C6-1 which allows for up to 6 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 3.44 times FAR for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $3.6 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property since September of 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received two DOB violations, $2,530 in ECB penalties, one housing violation, and $2,580 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 Chinatown, the bulk, or 33 percent of the 9 million square feet of commercial built space are residential walkup buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 16 percent of the space. In sales, Chinatown has had very little sales volume relative to other neighborhoods with $109.6 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Chinatown has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 261,484 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 3 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other residential walkup buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of four of the 80 commercial properties representing 55,099 square feet of the 309,299 square feet. The largest owner is Nakash Holdings, followed by Arbor Realty Trust and then Tak Law. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 69 percent of the 261,091 square feet of built space are residential walkup buildings, with residential elevator buildings next occupying 18 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 91-93 Baxter Street, Pincusco identified three commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those three items, three were loans above $5 million totaling $40 million. The most recent of the three was Nakash Holdings which borrowed $16 million from Bank Hapoalim secured by one condo unit in the 54-unit mixed-use building (RC) on 210 Canal Street on February 4, 2022.

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