In an area of Long Island City that is undergoing rapid development, a hulking former electrical supply building once owned by Eagle Electric Manufacturing sold for $48 million to an undisclosed buyer. A company affiliated with the Brooklyn-based Kraupner Group sold the 320,820-square foot property at 43-22 Queens Street on December 14, after signing a contract in September, city records published Friday show.
The former Eagle building, which has six stories, has no frontage on Jackson Avenue, the main thoroughfare in the immediate vicinity of the building, and instead fronts on two side streets — Queens Street and Dutch Kills Street — and overlooks the Sunnyside rail yards.
City documents identified the buyer as 43-22 Queens Street LLC, with an address registered at the law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel. Calls to the law firm were not returned. Principals with the Kraupner Group were not available for comment.
The area has been an active one this year. Six blocks away is the graffiti-covered 5 Pointz industrial building at 45-46 Davis Street at Jackson Avenue, which owner David Wolkoff said this summer he hopes to redevelop as residential towers. And Midtown-based Rockrose Development is nearing completion of its 709-unit rental tower 43-10 Crescent Street just south of Queens Plaza.
In addition, earlier this year, Jamestown Properties paid $81.2 million for a loft-style office building at 31-00 47th Avenue in Long Island City.
The former Eagle building is zoned for both manufacturing and residential, and PropertyShark.com shows it has total development rights of 496,320 square feet.
The Kraupner Group was the same company that sold another former Eagle Electric building to Andalex Group in January 2005 for $52 million, which was redeveloped as the Arris Lofts condominiums. At one time, Eagle Electric had at least six properties in Long Island City, city records show.
Shay Zach, an associate broker at Itzhaki Properties, who was not involved in the sale, said he expected the building would be converted to residential apartments.
“It is a great building, and it sold at a decent price. But the location is so-so, because it backs onto an access road,” Zach said.
A developer active in the area, Vincent Tomasino, a vice president at Port Washington, L.I.-based U.S Industrial Services, said he thought the new owners should consider a hotel use. Tomasino is developing a 36-unit residential building at the corner of 42nd Road and Jackson Avenue, a block from the Kraupner Group property that just sold.
“The bigger the better for a hotel user,” Tomasino said.