One of Manhattan’s most prominent builders is poised to take over a West Side assemblage with lucrative development potential.
Affiliates of Gary Barnett’s Extell Development and Joe Tabak’s Princeton Real Estate Partners are free to move forward with a credit bid for six adjacent lots along 11th Avenue owned by Robert Gans after he blew a Dec. 22 deadline to settle a $205 million bankruptcy claim, court filings show.
Gans, who acknowledged the missed deadline Thursday, put the 57,700-square-foot assemblage between West 45th and West 46th streets into bankruptcy last summer, along with other properties including a nearby parking lot and outdoor warehouse used by his business, Metropolitan Lumber.
Currently zoned for manufacturing, the assemblage would require Extell or another developer to petition the city for a rezoning before pursuing a residential project.
The parking lot, however, where stacked shipping containers stand sentry over lumber inventory, has as-of right development potential of 150,000 square feet and is zoned similarly to the existing residential towers that line 11th Avenue south of Gans’ business. Other properties in Gans’ portfolio include the Chelsea strip club Scores and industrial property in Queens.
A settlement agreement in September allowed Gans to repay his debts by Dec. 22 to escape foreclosure, but when the deadline passed, Gans was notified that the creditors’ claims against the property were considered in effect.
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Gans’ businesses were pummeled by Covid-related lockdowns in 2020, impairing his ability to service $148 million in loans made by Eli Tabak’s Bluestone Group, in the mezzanine position, and senior lender Mack Real Estate in 2018. Bluestone bought the senior debt after Mack Real Estate foreclosed on Gans in October 2021.
Extell and Princeton did not respond to requests for comment. Gans sued his creditors last April, allegeding a conspiracy to seize the assemblage, to no apparent avail.
Gans may still have one card up his sleeve in 605 West 45th Street, a property that is not collateral for his debt, but one he leased with a right to purchase. The 3,500-square-building interrupts the half-block assemblage on the west side of 11th Avenue, and could become a bargaining chip for Gans, possibly allowing him to hold out against Extell or another developer.