Long Island firm acquires Queens retail complex for $56M

A Long Island-based investment firm, led by Ken Schuckman and Aaron Malinsky, bought a sprawling Queens retail property for $56 million. 

BTF Whitestone Realty LLC, an affiliate of BTF Capital Fund, purchased the 119,771-square-foot Whitestone Shopping Center on 9.26 acres at 153-15-153-49 Cross Island Parkway. 

Built in 1955, Whitestone Shopping Center has 28 stores in five buildings. It’s anchored by a 27,457-square-foot Key Food supermarket and has a roster of neighborhood and regional tenants, including Chase Bank and Webster Bank. The property is less than 50 percent occupied. 

Available spaces at the shopping center range in size from 767 square feet to 18,883 square feet, according to a leasing brochure from Rockville Centre-based Schuckman Realty, which represents the property.

The new ownership plans on extensive renovations to the center, including exterior and site improvements, base building and the buildout of tenant-ready space throughout the center. Work will be phased so that existing tenants remain open and operating throughout. 

“Whitestone is one of the strongest neighborhoods in New York City, and this center has served it since 1955,” Schuckman, president of Schuckman Realty and a manager of BTF Whitestone Realty LLC, said in a written statement. “It has the location, the parking, and the daily traffic that retailers want, and almost nothing competes with it. Our job now is to bring the property up to the quality this community deserves and fill it with the tenants they have been asking for.” 

Founded in 2021, BTF Capital owns interests in several retail properties around the New York metropolitan area, including Atlantic Plaza in Ozone Park, Queens; New City Shopping Center in New City, N.Y.; Throggs Neck Shopping Center in the Bronx; and others. BTF is part of the ownership group for the Shops on Broadway, the $175 million redevelopment of the former Broadway Commons mall in Hicksville. 

“Well-located, supermarket-anchored real estate in supply-constrained New York City submarkets is very difficult to replace,” Malinsky, co-founder of BTF Capital and Curbcut Urban Partners, LLC, said in the statement. “We are investing here for the long term, and we intend for this to be the center Whitestone is known for.” 

The seller of the Whitestone Shopping Center was Manhattan-based Punia & Marx Real Estate. Acquisition financing was arranged by the Northmarq New York Debt + Equity team.