A real estate portfolio that stretches across Flushing, Manhattan and Long Island has been pulled from the auction block as its owner filed for bankruptcy.
Flushing developer and supermarket owner Jeffrey Wu threw three LLCs holding mezzanine debt on his properties into bankruptcy Wednesday. The loans, which total $15.3 million, had been put up for sale in an auction scheduled to close at 10 a.m. Wednesday. The auction was postponed.
Wu, who also goes by the name Myint J. Kyaw, also filed for personal bankruptcy in New York’s Eastern District court.
Wu did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The properties covered by his mezzanine loans include 41-60 Main Street in Downtown Flushing — a 100,00-square-foot office and retail building — and 50 units remaining in the 99-unit condo development at 133-38 Sanford Avenue.
The pledge interests also include a 28,000-square-foot commercial condo in Chinatown at 80 Elizabeth Street that’s leased to Hong Kong Supermarket — a chain of groceries Wu helped found. The final piece of the portfolio is a 184,000-square-foot industrial complex in Deer Park at 377 Carlls Path.
Wu’s personal bankruptcy filing lists assets under $50,000 and liabilities from $50 million to $100 million.
It’s not clear what caused the loans to fall into distress, and the problems predated the coronavirus. Wu’s lenders filed their notice of their creditors’ interests in his properties in January 2018.
That was when Wu received a $109 million financing package — a $94 million first mortgage and a $15 million mezzanine loan — for 41-60 Main Street from Eli Tabak’s Bluestone Group. Wu’s personal bankruptcy filing lists Bluestone as a creditor with a $7 million claim.
Contact Rich Bockmann at rb@therealdeal.com or 908-415-5229.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified the address of the property on Sanford Avenue.