Bronx-based investment company Chestnut Holdings is continuing a buying spree in its home borough, closing on a six-building multifamily portfolio in the Grand Concourse area, for a total of $29 million, The Real Deal has learned.
The five-story properties total 263,000 square feet and 300 units, a representative for Chestnut said. The landlord intends to revamp and improve the buildings, at Nos. 1565, 1575, 2080-2090, 2095 and 2894 Grand Concourse and 2077 Anthony Avenue, the spokesperson said.
“The Bronx is a borough we have always believed in,” Daniel Wiener, director of investments at Chestnut, said in a statement to The Real Deal. “As a long-term property owner and manager we work to enhance and hold our properties, which also contributes to better housing options for tenants and to neighborhood improvement.”
The sellers, identified only as Gore Creek LLC in city records, share an address with multifamily owner and manager Urban American Management, which is based in West New York, N.J. That entity purchased most of the buildings in 2006, though no one answered calls to the company’s office.
The sale closed last week.
Chestnut has been amassing a vast portfolio in the Bronx, but has come under fire from tenants for alleged mismanagement and a series of rent and fee hikes, as The Real Deal has previously reported. Executives at Chestnut have refuted those allegations, pointing out that acquiring distressed properties means the company often owns buildings in disrepair, and cleaning up them takes time.
In April, the firm purchased a bundle of five multifamily buildings also in the Ground Concourse area – at 343 East 173rd Street, 1487 Teller Avenue, 853 Walton Avenue, 1841 Mohegan Avenue and 975 Sherman Avenue — for $10.3 million.
In March, Chestnut purchased a trio of distressed properties called the Shalom Aleichem Houses, at 3605 Sedgwick Avenue, through a foreclosure proceeding.