FedEx buys warehouse, Gindis shop in Brooklyn in slow week for i-sales

Investors took an early summer vacation in New York City last week as only five deals for commercial properties trading in the middle of the market hit city records.

One notable transaction occurred in Queens. FedEx, one of the nation’s largest renters of industrial real estate, became a buyer in Maspeth, where it picked up a warehouse and parking lot at 55-70 and 55-80 48th Street for $50 million. Sellers listed in property records include a Florida-based family trust and an LLC with an address matching Long Island-based developer Carco Builders.

Typically tenants, some e-commerce and logistics companies have shifted to purchasing their own facilities during the pandemic, possibly as a cost-cutting measure: Asking rents for industrial properties are spiking across the country and available space is increasingly difficult to come by.

E-commerce giant Amazon leases the vast majority of its space, but it doubled its real estate holdings last year, expanding its portfolio to 16.7 million square feet in North America — though its most recent earnings report suggests the company may have acquired too much property in its buying spree.

While FedEx’s purchase was outside the typical $10 million to $40 million range of transactions included in this weekly report, five deals meeting those parameters were recorded in the city register last week. Two were in Brooklyn, with one each in Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx.

A limited liability company tied to the Gindi family’s real estate investment firm, ASG Equities, paid $14.8 million for a three-story department store at 472 86th Street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, once home to a Century 21. The Julian and Sharon Smith Family Limited Partnership were the sellers of the three-story property.

Cousins Al and Sonny Gindi built their family fortune after founding the now-bankrupt Century 21 chain in the 1960s. Now after buying it, the Gindis plan to redevelop the site of Century 21’s former Brooklyn flagship into a 150,000-square-foot retail complex.

An entity connected to the Sterling Organization acquired a 48,500-square-foot warehouse and distribution facility at 307-315 Bruckner Boulevard in Port Morris, the Bronx, for $14 million. The seller was La Flor De Mayo Express, a Bronx-based moving and storage company.

The deal was the first in New York City for Sterling, a private equity firm whose portfolio primarily consists of supermarket-anchored shopping centers throughout the country, including one each in Lodi, New Jersey, and East Northport on Long Island.

Adam Gordon’s Wildflower sold a self-storage facility at 262 Mott Street in Nolita for $13 million. The buyer of the property was an LLC with a Washington, D.C., address that matches private equity firm Carlyle Group.

Real estate investor Rosalind Resnick sold an apartment building at 475-479 4th Avenue in Park Slope for $11 million to an LLC. The five-story, eight-unit prewar building last traded for $5.4 million in 2014, property records show.

Rong Xin Sanford Realty LLC sold eight commercial condos at 144-27 Sanford Avenue in Flushing, Queens, to 168 Flushing Garden Realty LLC for $11 million. Developer Xin Xiang Lin purchased the property for $27 million in 2018 from the Church of Latter Day Saints and built an eight-story, 131-unit apartment building with ground-floor commercial space on the site.

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