The Long Island-based Alrose Group appears to be turning a corner. The landlord investor signed a 49-year lease with the local International House of Pancakes franchisee last week for its retail space at 80 Carmine Street. And, yesterday it cleared a crucial hurdle to stabilize a once-troubled Long Island building that’s home to the luxury Allegria Hotel.
Trihop — an affiliate of Ashkenazy Acquisition that owns the tri-state area franchise rights for the pancake house — signed the restaurant’s 10,500 square-foot lease on May 21 at Alrose’s commercial condominium, said Kevin Salmon, a partner at brokerage Salmon & Marshall Real Estate Investments. He and partner Matthew Marshall, represented both Ashkenazy and Alrose in the deal.
The new IHOP will have 3,500 square feet on the ground level, 1,000 square feet of covered outdoor space, and 6,000 square feet on the lower level. The rent is approximately $300,000 per year, Salmon said.
The unusual building shape provides multiple entrances that each target a different customer base, said Alrose’s president, Allen Rosenberg.
“It is basically a triple corner with entrances on three different streets,” he said, referring to Varick, Carmine and Downing streets.
The Varick entrance, he said, may appeal to a breakfast-and-lunch crowd from the neighborhood’s offices, while more residential diners will tend to enter on the other sides.
Ashkenazy — which is headed by Ben Ashkenazy and Michael Alpert — did not respond to a request for comment. But the firm has said it plans to open as many as 25 IHOPs in the tri-state area.
Salmon said Ashkenazy had been looking at the space for more than a year and a half, and originally considered buying the entire commercial condo, which city records show Alrose purchased in 2007 for $6.9 million. The commercial condo is at the base of a 10-story residential condo building.
A Kumon Learning Center also occupies 3,500 square feet on the ground floor, making up the balance of the commercial condo space.
Meanwhile, Rosenberg had another piece of good news yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Eastern District in Brooklyn. A bankruptcy judge approved a plan by another of Rosenberg’s companies — Alrose King David — to reorganize the finances of 80 West Broadway in Long Beach, Long Island.
Only last summer, it looked like Rosenberg was in danger of losing several assets, as two of his lenders were selling $44 million of debt on five of his properties. Since then, he’s paid down debt in some instances, and restructured the debt in others, Rosenberg said. But to protect the Long Beach building, which is occupied by the full-service Allegria Hotel, he filed for Chapter 11 protection in July 2011. He purchased the eight-story former nursing home for $21 million in 2007, and poured millions into it to create the 143-room hotel, which opened in the fall of 2009.
Bankruptcy records show the principal value of the debt once held by Brooklyn Federal Savings Bank, and now owned by Investors Savings Bank, was cut from $38.2 to $24 million. Meanwhile, court records show an appraiser estimated the market value of the property at just $22 million.
The hotel’s occupancy rates and revenue are expected to rise over the coming years, the appraisal said.