Quicklinks: 239 Banker Street Sold?

May 24, 2012 by missheather
Filed under: 11222, Greenpoint, Greenpoint Brooklyn, Greenpoint Magic

If Brownstoner and Curbed are to be believed, this is the case. Per the latter:

The latest development at perpetual Greenpoint headscratcher the Sweater Factory Lofts has us, if possible, even more puzzled. The building just changed hands for $9.1 million, according to a deed that hit public record this morning. The buyer is an LLC, so we don’t know anything about who has plans for this building or what those plans might be. But the building’s long and slightly sordid history means our mind is slightly boggled by that sale price.

Brownstoner notes that the LLC in question is “JL Take Two LLC” and goes on to add it is unclear whether or not the new owner is a developer. In regards to this a commenter on Curbed tenders an interesting analysis:

Read the court case Lebedowicz v Meserole Factory LLC. JL had a mezz loan on the property above the $8m first mortgage. Probably either just got foreclosure or deed in lieu. Mezz lender foreclosure would explain the low price on the deed. It wasnt an arms length sale.

This keeps getting more and more interesting folks…

UPDATE: Here’s some more analysis from someone “in the know”!

You no doubt saw that this sold – if you haven’t already, you’ll want to spend your morning on ACRIS: http://a836-acris.nyc.gov/Scripts/DocSearch.dll/BBLResult (block 2593, lot 1)

I don’t have time to get into too much detail, but the transactions there are interesting.

JL Take Two is owned by Jerry and Lucy Lebedowicz, and they bought the property for $9.1 million from Meserole Factory LLC (the only name I could find was Israel Perlmutter, but I’m not sure if he is associated with the seller). Jerry & Lucy appear to hold the mezzanine debt on the property, which $3.5 million and dates to November 2005.

Separate from the sale, there is a four-year lease from Jerry and Lucy to Northside Lofts, LLC (390 Berry Street, Joseph Brunner is the manager of the LLC). Northside Lofts seems to have an option to purchase, but I can’t see any details.

Separately, an entity named Lex Debt LLC has a four-year option to purchase the property from Jerry and Lucy. That option is for $9.679 million if it is exercised today, and there is an escalator clause of $22k per month for the first 36 months and $42.5k per month for the last 12 months. So if they wait until the end of the option period, the price goes up by $1.3 million. The only name I can find associated with Lex Debt LLC is Israel Worch (not sure the spelling of the last name, it was scrawled). The address for Lex is a PO box in 11230 zip code.

So – Jerry and Lucy of Flushing hold a big chunk of debt on the building, and now they own the building outright. But Northside Lofts is the tenant of the whole thing, and a third party has an option to buy the property, with incentives to buy sooner rather than later.

I think I have that all correct…

Curbed: Someone Just Bought Greenpoint’s Sweater Factory Lofts
Brownstoner: Greenpoint’s Sweater Factory Lofts on Banker St Sells