Less than two months after the failure of an earlier bid, an iconic New York building, the “Flatiron,” was sold on Tuesday for $161 million to a group of buyers led by real estate developer Jeff Gural, the company that organized the sale announced.
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The sale took place outdoors, in lower Manhattan, in front of a hundred people, and seven buyers were registered, Manyon Auctions told AFP.
Jeff Gural, 80, is no stranger to the Flatiron, as he accounts for 75% of the iron-shaped building’s owners.
A 22-storey office building 87 meters high, at the crossroads of 22nd Street, Fifth Avenue and Broadway, the “Flatiron” was built in two years and completed in 1902, in the Beaux-Arts style.
Its pointed shape, recognizable among all and which gave it its name, is explained by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway, the only artery in Manhattan not aligned with the straight plane of the island.
On March 22, the building sold for the first time for $190 million, by order of the city, to settle a dispute between its owners.
But the buyer, financier Jacob Garrick, founder of the Abraham Trust investment fund, had not paid the $19 million advance by March 24.
The building could have already gone to Jeff Gorral, President of GFP Real Estate, who bid $189.5 million, but the latter preferred to wait for new auctions to be organized.
Iron has been empty since 2019 when its last tenant, publisher MacMillan Publishers, left.
The five owners could not agree to renovate or use it. Four real estate companies – GFP Real Estate, Newmark, ABS Real Estate Partners and Sorgente Group – controlled 75% of it.
The fifth partner, Nathan Silverstein, controlled the remaining 25%.
In 2021, the four companies sued Nathan Silverstein, accusing him of leaving an empty Flatiron.
A municipal judge ordered the owners to sell the building at auction.
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