Extell Sells UES Parcel to Chess Builders for $50M

Cheskel Schwimmer has swooped in to take an Upper East Side development site off of Gary Barnett’s hands.

Schwimmer’s Chess Builders purchased the site at 355 East 86th Street for $50 million, the Commercial Observer reported. That’s a significant premium from the $14.5 million Extell Development paid to acquire the four-story apartment building from Bremen House four years ago.

Extell did not immediately respond to the Observer’s request for comment, while Chess Builders could not be reached by the publication.

Barnett acquired the site in 2021 in connection with a portfolio of other nearby sites. By 2023, demolition permits were filed and local small businesses were being evicted from their properties. Additional demolition permits were filed this past September.

In November, Chess Builders filed plans for a 99-unit mixed-use building. The 23-story property, alternatively addressed at 1655 First Avenue, is expected to rise 235 feet tall and span 145,000 square feet, including ground floor retail space.

Considering that buildings with 99 units is the maximum size allowed before triggering prevailing wage requirements under 485x, the replacement for the expired 421a tax break, it appears that Schwimmer plans to build rentals at the site, not condos.

The site is across the street from another Extell development site, where a holdout tenant has delayed the construction of a mixed-income, 22-story building. The rent-stabilized tenant had yet to leave as of early last year, despite a court ruling in Extell’s favor.

Cheskel Schwimmer has largely been out of the spotlight in recent years, though his son, JCS Realty’s Jacob Schwimmer, recently scored $165 million in fresh financing for One38, a mixed-use project in the Bronx.

— Holden Walter-Warner