Parkview Financial Seeks to Foreclose on Yonkers Site

A self-storage facility in Yonkers sounds like the safest investment play of all-time.

But the Lewin family is finding out that high construction costs and interest rates are coming even to the dull, vanilla and once fool-proof development projects.

Parkview Financial initiated a foreclosure on the site of a planned 949-unit self storage facility at 1060 Nepperhan Avenue. The lender launched a Uniform Commercial Code, or a non-judicial foreclosure, on the developer’s interests in the unfinished property.

Parkview Financial’s Paul Rahimian said the loan matured several months ago. He said the borrower at one point talked about bringing another equity partner into the project. Ultimately, that never happened.

“We gave them a lot of opportunities to figure out solutions,” said Rahimian.

Kirk Lewin, whose family owns the property, said they “are and will be taking any measures necessary to proceed with the project as planned without any foreclosure occurring.”

The foreclosure auction is scheduled for January 16. Matthew Mannion is the auctioneer and Brock Cannon of Newmark is the brokering the auction.

The Lewin family owned the property for over three decades and used it as a base for their vitamin and supplement business, Health Products Corp. The family sought to invest $15 million to build the new eight-story self-storage facility operated by CubeSmart.

“We know vitamins, we know how to market vitamins, we know how to sell vitamins, we don’t know how to sell self-storage that’s why we’ve hired a third party marketing company,” said Kirk Lewin, during a hearing with the City of Yonkers Industrial Development Agency in 2021.

The Lewin family entity, KCT, sought to obtain tax relief from Yonkers Industrial Development Agency. KCT was approved for a mortgage recording tax exemption and a sales tax exemption, according to Westfair Business Journal.

KCT secured a $18.3 million construction loan from Parkview in 2022. The project was supposed to be completed in late 2023, but higher interest rates likely changed financial projections for the project.

In June, Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano asked the city council to enact moratoriums on construction approvals and openings for self-storage projects, the Westfair Business Journal reported. The moratorium on self-storage projects would last for eight months, preventing more from coming online. One concern was that self-storage properties contribute less property and sales tax revenue.

Los Angeles-based Parkview, led by Rahimian, has found itself involved in a few high-profile disputes with developers in New York City and New Jersey over foreclosures or defaults.

Earlier this year, the lender alleged Boruch Singer defaulted on a $92 million construction loan used to fund an unusual 252,000-square-foot office complex in Brooklyn’s Midwood neighborhood.

In July, Parkview also alleged a Lakewood-based developer defaulted on payments on their Newark high-rise rental towers dubbed The Halo. The developer, Acier Holdings, alleged Parkview failed to fund the loan. Parkview denies the allegation. A lawsuit is still pending.