Legion Investment Group is following through on its plans to construct a ground-up residential building on the Upper East Side.
The firm, led by former Naftali Group chief investment officer Victor Sigoura, wants to build a 19-story, 145,000-square-foot development at 109 East 79th Street, according to a pre-filed application recorded with the city’s building department. The site sits near Park Avenue and about two avenues from Central Park.
Legion declined to comment.
The application calls for 36 residential units. In May, The Real Deal reported that the project is planned as a condominium building.
The firm acquired three parcels — at 113, 115 and 117 East 79th Street — for the development last year, paying over $62 million to yield some 72,000 buildable square feet. One investor in the project is Gindi Capital, the Gindi family’s investment arm.
The development’s address, 109 East 79th Street, is technically two doors down from that assemblage. Legion has yet to officially acquire the property that currently sits there and the one in between, property records show. But Siguora already has filed permits to knock down the four- and five-story properties at all of the sites.
Kassin Sabbagh Realty’s Ceasar Salama and Joseph Ash brokered the sales of 113, 115 and 117 East 79th Street. Salama declined to comment on the status of the deals with the other two parcels.
“We’re very excited for Legion to bring this wonderful project to the Upper East Side,” Salama said of the development. “We think it will be one of the most thoughtful projects we’ve seen in awhile.”
Sigoura was once chief investment officer at Miki Naftali’s Naftali Group but left in 2016 to form Highpoint Property Group with Drew Popkin, a former Naftali colleague. Sigoura later that year left Highpoint and formed Legion. The two sued Naftali over a share-of-profits dispute, but Sigoura dropped his suit.
Sigoura’s first project since leaving Naftali was 282 Nassau Avenue in Greenpoint, a boutique condominium with 21 units across three buildings.