Nine months after going into contract, developer Yitzchok Katz closed on a deal to buy a Gowanus development site from Jack Elo’s Elo Organization.
An LLC tied to Katz’s Goose Property Management paid $22 million for the vacant lot at 172 Third Avenue.
The February contract gave Katz until Oct. 15 to close, but that seems to have been extended. The sale date was Nov. 6. Hirschy Zaks of Venture Capital Properties brokered the deal. Financing was originated by Steven Jemal and Shawn Safdie of S3 Capital.
The site described in the contract is 130 feet by 100 feet, except for a 300-square-foot parcel carved out of the southwest corner. But the purchase likely includes adjacent parcels assembled by Elo such as 265 and 273 Douglass Street. Commercial Observer reported the assemblage’s total as 110,000 square feet. It is within the section of Gowanus rezoned in late 2021 to allow for more residential development.
Elo bought the assemblage in 2009 for $7.8 million, filed plans for a 20,000-square-foot building in 2017, and borrowed $21.5 million against the property in 2021, but did not put footings in the ground to qualify for the multifamily property tax break 421a. A source close to the deal said it qualifies for the replacement tax break 485x.
Katz is in contract to buy an adjacent industrial building at 264 Butler Street, which would add about 52,500 square feet of development rights to his assemblage, according to PincusCo. The seller would be Dominick Cappolla Jr. through the entity Domal Transportation.
The state’s extension of the 421a completion deadline to 2031 kept a number of Gowanus sites viable for development under the expired abatement program.
Reached by phone at his Manhattan office, Jack Elo said he sold 172 Third Avenue because he did not have time to develop it. (He said he is in contract to buy 21 West 46th Street, a 15-story building in Midtown.)
Katz is CEO of Goose Property Management, the management firm for Simon Dushinsky’s Rabsky Group, and is the son-in-law of Rabsky partner Isaac Rabinowitz. Goose is a partner of Rabsky, according to its website, and manages many of Rabsky’s apartments.
Katz did not immediately respond to requests for comment.