K5 Equities buys New Rochelle apartments for $32M

green dolphin k5 equities
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K5 Equities LLC of Tuckahoe has bought the Green Dolphin Apartments in New Rochelle for $32 million.

Whitehall Properties LLC, an affiliate of Pan Am Equities of Manhattan, deeded the 120-unit complex on June 4 to two affiliates of K5 Equities, according to Westchester County property records.

K5 mortgaged the property to Capital One bank for $20.5 million.

The property comprises two, 6-story structures built in 1955 on 2.1 acres at 720-730 Pelham Road. The buildings back up to the Long Island Sound, across from Travers Island and Glen Island Yacht Club.

Pan Am Equities bought the property for $5.1 million in 1996, or the equivalent of $8.3 million today, adjusted for inflation. It was mortgaged for $7.5 million, according to county property records, the equivalent of $12.2 million today.

K5 is a real estate investment firm run by Scarsdale resident Steven Kessner, the CEO.

He made his fortune in East Harlem, amassing a portfolio of 47 apartment buildings. In 2007, just before the Great Recession and the peak of the housing bubble, he sold them to a British firm for $225 million.

He timed the market a second time, according to his LinkedIn profile, acquiring a dozen Manhattan properties at the bottom of the market in 2011 and selling for a profit in 2015.

Now the company is focusing on Westchester and points north. The K5 portfolio includes properties in Hartsdale, Larchmont, Mount Vernon, Port Chester, Rye, Stamford, Connecticut, and White Plains.

Pan Am Equities is a real estate development and management company founded in the 1970s by Iranian immigrants, the brothers Amir and Eskandar Manocherian.

Pan Am owns about 85 buildings in Manhattan and specializes in tenements on First and Second avenues on the Upper East Side.