Legion Investment Assembles $90M Development Site in NYC

Victor Sigoura’s Legion Investment Group has finished cobbling together an Upper East Side development site with its purchase of 1128 Madison Avenue for $22 million.

The parcel is the final piece of a $95 million assemblage on the southwest corner of Madison and East 84th Street, where Legion plans an 18-story luxury condo building with 22 apartments and ground-floor retail.

Sigoura started putting together the assemblage in 2019, with Genghis Hadi’s Nahla Capital as an equity partner, when Nahla bought a $23 million parcel from Joe Sitt’s Thor Equities and Uzi Ben Abraham and Yaron Jacobi’s Premier Equities.

Legion’s condo building will span about 86,000 square feet above ground, putting its land price per developed square foot at about $1,100, according to land and air rights analyst Duane Burress, including 20,000 square feet of air rights from the neighboring 20 East 84th Street and a $5 million payment made to a current retail tenant, LA-based clothing designer James Perse.

The air rights will allow Legion to build higher and protect views of Central Park for eventual residents of the project by precluding any additions along its western edge.

The condo building’s spacious pads will average more than 3,500 square feet, according to a spokesperson for Legion. Hill West is the architect.

The Upper East Side has undergone a recent revival as a top destination for condo construction, including a project by Legion on East 79th Street and several by Naftali Group, where Sigoura cut his teeth, including on East 77th Street, East 83rd Street, and at 1045 and 1165 Madison Avenue.

In New York, Nahla has invested in ground-up condo projects at 152 Elizabeth Street, developed by Sumaida + Khurana and designed by Tadao Ando in Nolita, and Naftali Group’s 221 West 77th Street.

The average new condo in Manhattan sold for $2,000 per square foot during the final quarter of 2023, a decline from $2,400 per square foot in the same period of 2022, according to appraisal firm Miller Samuel, as higher mortgage rates have dampened prices.

Legion is also at work building an assemblage for a new condo development facing Gramercy Park.