Haymes of The Beige Group acts as advisor in $6.105 million sale

Developers Simon Dushinsky along with Fortis Property Group, LLC have purchased a six-story loft building in North Williamsburg for a price "higher than $6.1 million," according to Evan Haymes, co-founder and managing director of The Beige Group, who served as exclusive adviser to the seller. The buyers plan to convert the former 30,000 s/f commercial property at 139 North 10th St., into 29 condominiums. The former manufacturing building features over 12 ft. high ceilings, exposed brick walls, enormous windows, large wooden columns, beams and girders. "The selling price of the building is amazing when you consider the economy, the fact that the buyers signed a contract with rent stabilized tenants still living in the building, and no clear entitlements or permits in place," Haymes said. "I believe this to be the highest price to date, post-recession, for a development site in North Williamsburg." The seller, Sanjer Raz LLC, which has owned the building since 1999, is managed by Ramon Maislen, who first came to the Beige Group, seeking a joint venture partner on the project. Maislen was drawn to Haymes and his development partner Matthew Bronfman, who developed other high-end residential area buildings, the Ikon and Aurora. Maislen was also able to buy out all nine rent stabilized tenants, many of whom, had been in residence for over 25 years and deliver the building free and clear of all tenancies. Using their expertise, Haymes and the Beige Group offered Maislen pre-development advice regarding architectural plans, zoning analysis and a feasibility study, along with various ways the transaction might be structured before putting the building up for sale. "We wanted him to have a development debut and take no construction or sales risk," said Haymes, who worked closely on the pre-development proposal with Brie Train, Development Coordinator of MNS (formerly The Developers Group) and MNS Chairman and founding partner Elan Padeh who is responsible for some of the most successful projects in Brooklyn. "We also worked with Ramon and Standard Architects on the unit mix for a condo for which the property is ideally suited for...or for a luxury rental," added Haymes. "We think that value on end sales would be in the neighborhood of $850 per s/f." After procuring four signed letters of intent by potential joint development partners at $5.25-$5.75 million valuation, Haymes convinced Maislen that he could sell the property for higher than $6 million. "It is very hard to match cultures in a joint venture and major decisions often become contentious," said Haymes. "Given the size of the property, most of the potential joint venture partners we procured were either family offices or non-institutional entrepreneurs. Without marketing the property for sale and using our proprietary network, we got five additional offers in excess of $6.1 million for a sale." The deal closed July 19 two weeks prior to an S & P 4% market correction in August 2011. Haymes said, "A big question is whether or not the southern part of Williamsburg, which consists of many other properties ripe for residential development, can fetch the $200 plus per square foot price this deal has established for the neighborhood's northern portion and what that would mean for the area's residential market."