Argentic acquires original Barneys building with $49M judgment from Ashkenazy through foreclosure

Lender Argentic Investment Management acquired Ashkenazy Acquisition’s retail building at 115 Seventh Avenue in Chelsea that had a final judgment of $49.5 million, according to the foreclosure documents. Ownership was transferred through a referee deed.

The lender began the foreclosure process in September of 2020, alleging Ashkenazy failed to repay the $46.2 million of debt despite the loan maturing in May of that year. Ashkenazy originally bought the property on December 18, 2014, for $57 million.

The transfer closed on March 15, 2022 and was recorded on March 30, 2022. Clark A. Whitsett signed as the referee. John Burke was the signatory for Argentic, through the entity Areit Re Holder LLC. The transfer had a price of $7 million, according to court records and Acris documents.

Ashkenazy is under pressure on multiple fronts. The company was also facing foreclosure at 1400 Fifth Avenue, as PincusCo previously reported. For that property, the lender alleges the original $12.3 million loan with interest is now $16.665 million as of February 16, 2022.

Ashkenazy also lost a midtown retail building in late 2021 after SL Green Realty took control of their 690 Madison Avenue.

Despite the flurry of lawsuits and foreclosures, Ashkenazy purchased a former JCPenney store in January for $40.5 million with a $31 million acquisition loan from Benefit Street Partners.

The 115 Seventh Avenue property has 42,380 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $165 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 building was home to the original flagship Barney’s store but it has since shuttered.

The property

The 115 Seventh Avenue parcel has frontage of 52 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 5,296 square feet. The zoning is C6-3A which allows for up to 6 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 7.52 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $18.8 million.

Violations and lawsuits

The property was involved in three lawsuits and no bankruptcies over the past two years. The highest value suit was a $46.2 million commercial foreclosure concerning a loan filed on August 28, 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received one DOB violation and $300 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 Chelsea, the bulk, or 35 percent of the 62.6 million square feet of commercial built space are residential elevator buildings, with office buildings next occupying 30 percent of the space. In sales, Chelsea has the 2nd highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $2.3 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Chelsea has 1.4 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 16th highest in Manhattan. It had 1.3 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 2 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other retail buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of two of the 28 commercial properties representing 74,166 square feet of the 444,201 square feet. The two identified owners are STG Realty Group and S.W. Management. There is one active new building construction project totaling 9,157 square feet. It is a four-unit, 9,157-square-foot R-2 building developed by Yaniv Garbo with plans filed December 11, 2018 and it has not been permitted yet.

the majority, or 59 percent of the 450,605 square feet of built space are residential elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 14 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 115 Seventh Avenue, Pincusco identified 10 commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those 10 items, six were sales above $5 million totaling $99.6 million. The most recent of the six was Sharon Yehoshua Darouva which bought one condo unit in the 4,871-square-foot, 55-unit mixed-use building (RM) on 210 West 18th Street for $23.5 million from Daniel Stephen Hafner on December 14, 2021.
Of those 10 items, four were loans above $5 million totaling $65.9 million. The most recent of the four was Corporate Habitat which borrowed $5.4 million from Carver Federal Savings Bank secured by the 10,872-square-foot, 22-unit rental (C4) on 208 West 17th Street on September 1, 2021.

Direct link to Acris document. link