Brooklyn investor Joel Gluck is taking another bite into the South Bronx multifamily market. Gluck just paid $66.7 million, or $177 per square foot, for a Section 8 housing complex known as Academy Gardens, sources told The Real Deal.
The eight-building, 376,200-square-foot complex, located along Commonwealth and Rosedale avenues on the Clason Point peninsula, contains a total of 470 residential units. Each of the elevator buildings contains about 60 apartments.
The seller is Joel Leder’s Bronxville-based Sovereign Servicing Systems, which also manages the complex. Leder paid $17.3 million for it in 2005, property records show.
Academy Gardens is part of the city’s Section 8 housing program, and all the units are affordable. Average rents for a one-bedroom pad are $1,139 per month, according to Section 8 housing data.
The addresses are 501-513, 521-523, 539-541 and 549-567 Commonwealth Avenue and 500-512, 520-522, 540-542 and 550-552 Rosedale Avenue. The complex occupies a full block between Randall and Lacombe avenues.
Rosewood Realty Group’s Aaron Jungreis, who brokered the deal, declined to comment. Gluck, who runs Park Management and Spencer Equity Group, couldn’t be immediately reached, nor could Leder.
The acquisition marks Gluck’s largest deal in the Bronx to date, sources said. Though he owns an 11-story rental building at 1340-1350 Stratford Avenue in the borough’s Parkchester neighborhood, he primarily operates in Brooklyn.
The investor has successfully raised more than $150 million on the Israeli bond market. His partners in the past have included Yoel Goldman’s All Year Management and Toby Moskovits of Heritage Equity Partners. Gluck and Goldman reached a settlement late last year with Moskovits over several property disputes.
Gluck’s deal is one of several big affordable housing portfolio trades in the last couple of years. In December 2015, the Related Cos. partnered with New York City pension funds to buy a 20-building Bronx portfolio for $112.5 million, making it the borough’s largest portfolio deal of the year. And in June 2014, Sol Arker’s Arker Cos. bought a 676-unit South Bronx “Morrisania” multifamily portfolio in 2014 from Two Trees Management for $85.5 million.