Major fast-food franchisee pays $10.5M to Julien Studley’s widow for retail near Union Square

A major quick-service restaurant franchisee, Ali Shahid Butt, through the entity Re 34 E 14th LLC, paid $10.5 to million to the widow of the late Julien Studley, through the entity Urban On The Square LLC, for the midblock mixed-use building at 34 East 14th Street just off Union Square in Greenwich Village, Manhattan.
The deal closed on March 10, 2022 and was recorded on March 18, 2022. The property has 7,725 square feet of built space and 18,092 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 25,810 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,359 and the price per buildable square foot is $406 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.) Julien Studley sold air rights from this building to an adjacent development led by the Claremont Group.
Jane Studley is the widow of Julien J. Studley, the founder of the eponymous brokerage that he sold in a partner buyout in 2002. Those owners sold it to the global brokerage Savills in 2014. Julien Studley also bought and sold commercial real estate, such as this property which he acquired in 1994. He died in 2015.  The buyer is the CEO and founder of AR Group of Restaurants, which operates Popeye’s franchises.

Prior sales and revenue

The 7,725-square-foot property generated revenue of $859,711 or $111 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 34 East 14th Street parcel has frontage of 25 feet and is 103 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,581 square feet. The zoning is C6-4 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 $5.9 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 $100 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 Greenwich Village, the bulk, or 35 percent of the 34 million square feet of built space are residential elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 18 percent of the space. In sales, Greenwich Village has the 10th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.3 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Greenwich Village has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 445,850 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 1 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of five of the 32 commercial properties representing 116,284 square feet of the 1,141,738 square feet. The largest owner is CB Developers, followed by C. Gershon Company and then Witnick Real Estate Partners. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 34 East 14th Street, PincusCo identified 13 commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those 13 items, five were sales above $5 million totaling $58.4 million. The most recent of the five was Penn South Capital which bought the 5,072-square-foot, 10-unit rental (C7) on 18 East 13th Street for $6 million from Morris Harary on January 25, 2022.
Of those 13 items, eight were loans above $5 million totaling $139.6 million. The most recent of the eight was Yongyut Limleartvate which borrowed $8.3 million from Emerald Creek Capital secured by the 13,035-square-foot, seven-unit office building (O6) on 39 East 13thstreet and two other properties on March 16, 2022.

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