Another attempt to find an owner for the former Bowery Savings Bank in the Lower East Side is days away.
The property at 130 Bowery Street is being put on the auction block, Bloomberg reported. The judge in a related bankruptcy case opened up bids for the property through Feb. 4, with an auction scheduled for a week later if competing bids are submitted.
Meridian Capital Group is marketing the famed 33,000-square-foot building, which has been through the financial wringer in recent years and part of the National Register of Historic Places since 1980.
Michael and David Marvisi acquired the Stanford White-designed property in 2017 at a $33 million valuation. The property’s lone tenant was events organizer Capitale NYC, which was paying $118,000 per month on a lease not due to expire until 2032.
In 2019, the property was put on the auction block, the Marvisis hoping to score $50 million in a sale. The auction never took place.
During the pandemic, Capitale started to miss rent payments, according to court documents. In August 2020, ownership defaulted on a $12 million loan from Wells Fargo.
The Marvisis staved off a forced sale in 2022 by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the property. Wells Fargo sued the owners, alleging years of missed loan payments, while the Marvisis again tried to sell the building with an initial ask of $35 million.
A year later, SC Holdings emerged as a potential buyer of the property and a deal was expected to close by October 2023. Repeated delays, however, led the trustee of a defaulted securitized loan secured by the building to allege that the individuals controlling the debtor were intentionally delaying the sale. Last February, SC Holdings declared the contract void, according to PincusCo.
The lender took control of the property last year after the sale fell through. The lenders can submit a credit bid for as much as $23.4 million for the building, where Capitale is no longer operating due to the looming sale.