Weiss buys LIC’s Crescent Club for $97M

The Weiss family’s Weiss Realty picked up a 17-story Long Island City rental building called the Crescent Club for $97 million – the third time the property has traded in the four years since it was built, sources said.

The red-brick, 140,000-square-foot property at 41-17 Crescent Street, near the 7 train’s Queensboro Plaza station, contains 130 apartments. There is also a garage and a 6,000-square-foot retail component that will soon hold a new restaurant.

The deal closed Wednesday for just shy of $700 per square foot. The seller was Charles Dayan’s Bonjour Capital, which has owned the property for more than two years.

The site has been through multiple iterations and several owners in just a short period of time. It was developed by NCF Equities, a partnership between Ben Nash, Aaron Chitrik and Assaf Fitoussi. NCF envisioned the property as a condominium, but in 2011, lost control of it after defaulting on a $51 million mortgage note. Simon Development Group, in partnership with Meadow Partners, rescued the project out of foreclosure in 2012, and Crescent Club opened later that year.

In 2013, Bonjour paid $85 million for the property.

Unlike the previous owners, Brooklyn-based Weiss Realty is in it for the long haul, said Meridian Capital Group’s Lipa Lieberman, who brokered the sale.

Weiss is planning a long-term hold and renovations that would create new amenities such as a business center and children’s playroom. The property already has a pool and rooftop lounge.

“The building is of condo quality, from the high-end finishes to the 10-foot ceiling heights,” Lieberman said.

The deal is part of a 1031 exchange with another property. In November, Weiss sold a 300,000-square-foot Financial District office building at 40-42 Exchange Place to the Northwind Group and Newmark Holdings for $115 million, also brokered by Lieberman.

Rents range from $2,450 for a studio to $5,600 for a three-bedroom unit. Douglas Elliman’s Gilad Azaria handles leasing at the property.