A friend who lent the late Brandon Miller $1.5 million secured by Miller’s interest in a Chelsea development is now stuck in limbo because Miller apparently left no will when he died.
The friend, Douglas Teitelbaum, took control of the entity that owns the leasehold on the property at 118 10th Avenue days after Miller died by suicide on July 3. The entity, Highline 118 LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection shortly after.
But Teitelbaum, a former hedge fund manager turned private investor, said he has been unable to get access to any records or bank accounts for the property. He has not been able to file a monthly operating report, as required in Chapter 11 cases, because he doesn’t have ability to view books or records, he said during a phone conference in the bankruptcy case.
“I don’t have access to any records. I don’t know what obligations might exist, I don’t know where a bank account sits, what might be in it,” Teitelbaum said. “I have access to nothing.”
Teitelbaum said he was hoping to see the books once Candice Miller becomes the administrator of her husband’s estate. Miller’s widow filed a petition this month in surrogate’s court to be appointed administrator, according to documents submitted in an unrelated lawsuit.
Her lawyer did not respond to a request for comment. Teitelbaum declined to comment.
Teitelbaum provided a loan against the Chelsea property in late 2023. Brandon Miller told him he was working on a “global refinancing” of the long-planned office development near the southern end of the High Line and would repay the loan from the proceeds, Teitelbaum said.
But the refinancing never happened, and Miller defaulted on the loan this spring.
“We were well into default under my loan to Mr. Miller when I got a horrible phone call to learn that he had taken his life,” Teitelbaum said during the conference.
Miller was also behind on the ground lease payments when he died, according to the landlord, B & R Tenth Avenue. Overdue rent payments have continued to pile up since Miller’s death, totaling more than $1 million, according to court papers filed by B & R.
Miller’s company, Real Estate Equities Corporation, took over the ground lease for the 10th Avenue property in 2017 for $21 million and planned to build a 10-story office building on the site.
But that plan never materialized. After demolishing the restaurant and bar on the property, REEC signed over the ground lease to Highline 118 LLC in 2019, an entity tied to GDS Development Management and Swedish real estate firm Klövern AB. Plans for an office development stalled again.
Brandon Miller bought the property back from GDS and Klovern late last year for $1. Almost two months after his death, the project remains in a holding pattern.
“I’m hoping that when Candice becomes administrator, the floodgates can open,” Teitelbaum said.
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