Legion Investment Group has landed another one.
The luxury developer that splashed onto the Manhattan scene during the pandemic with the hit condo 109 E. 79th St. has picked up a huge parcel in West Chelsea amid a flurry of activity for the firm.
Legion, whose chief executive officer is Victor Sigoura, has purchased 540 W. 21st St., a nearly half-acre plot at 11th Avenue near the High Line, for $87.4 million, according to the city register.
Originally made up of a row of warehouses – and in the 1990s, nightclubs – No. 540 was previously owned by Casco Development Corp., which put the site into bankruptcy protection last summer after the company failed to come up with enough financing to cover a planned 20-story condo tower that expected a $539 million sellout.
Casco had paid $50 million for the property in 2014, when the firm purchased it from a Johnson & Johnson heir, so the firm appears to have nabbed a profit of 75% with the current deal, though bankruptcy court records suggest Casco has a long line of creditors.
Deutsche Bank provided Legion with nearly $56 million in acquisition funding for the deal, which went into contract Dec. 28 and closed April 15, the register said.
The corner site at the West Side Highway, where Casco did manage to pour a foundation, could accommodate a 141,000-square-foot residential building, according to Legion, which appears to also be considering a 172,000-square-foot commercial building, based on an emailed statement.
The property “represents an exceptional opportunity to create a landmark project on one of the last remaining sites of its kind in New York’s most dynamic and trafficked neighborhoods,” Sigoura said in the statement. The firm otherwise declined to comment.
As multifamily development activity overall has declined, Legion has moved aggressively in a short time frame to build condos on the Upper East Side and in Gramercy, and now possibly in West Chelsea. For instance, the firm has secured permits to demolish six buildings at East 84th Street and Madison Avenue where Legion, working with equity partner Nahla Capital, has filed plans to put up an 18-story, 47-unit tower.
Legion has also taken major steps to construct an 11-story condo at a multi-lot site on East 21st Street near Gramercy Park, including offering $45 million to snap up a modest co-op in the face of some opposition.
The big bets come as demand for homes can appear tepid even as pricing remains strong. Manhattan had 9,827 sales of co-ops and condos in 2023, the lowest total in a decade except for 2020, when the pandemic essentially shut down markets for a few months, according to data from Douglas Elliman.
But 2023’s median sale price of $1.15 million was the second-highest in the decade, behind only the $1.195 million median in 2022, Elliman said.
Legion might also be heartened by the reception it got for 109 E. 79th St., its first Manhattan project. The condo near Park Avenue, which launched sales as Covid raged in September 2020, had sold all 31 of its units for a haul of $446 million by 2023. The last unit to sell, a four-bedroom penthouse, fetched $35 million.
Casco, which is reportedly controlled by real estate investor Uri Chaitchik, could not be reached by press time.
C. J. Hughes , 2024-04-18 18:33:46
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