A 25-story office tower just blocks from Penn Station, which recently sold for $85 million, is poised to be converted into housing, according to one of the buyers of the property.
SoHo-based developer Katan Realty Group announced Wednesday that it acquired 345 Seventh Ave. in partnership with Kohan Retail Investment Group, based in Great Neck, Long Island, and Ilya Mikhailov, the founder of an investment firm in Forest Hills, Queens.
No plans have been filed yet to convert the roughly 190,000-square-foot building between West 29th and West 30th streets into apartments, but the president of Katan Group hinted Wednesday in his announcement of the acquisition that the area is ripe for being “magnificently transformed” and specifically for “bringing thousands of residential units” online.
“We are inspired by the current administration’s visionary approach to new zoning,” said Isaac Katan.
Katan otherwise declined to provide more details about the plans for the site, which spans much of the Plaza District block and is a stone’s throw from Madison Square Garden. He also declined to name the seller of the property, although it was likely the lender, Benefit Street Partners, which is based in the Flatiron District.
The circa-1928 office building had allegedly been headed to the auction block in the fall amid talks between its former owners, Namdar Realty Group and Empire Capital, to hand back the property to the lender after it initiated a foreclosure action, the Commercial Observer reported in July. The sale was scheduled for September by Midtown-based financial advisory firm Walker & Dunlop, the outlet reported, but apparently never took place after the foreclosure was canceled and a deal had been worked out, Katan said. Namdar Realty Group and Empire Capital purchased 345 Seventh Ave. for $107 million as part of a multi-parcel acquisition on the block in 2021, city records show.
Benefit Street Partners did not respond to a request for comment, and Walker & Dunlop declined to comment on the foreclosure action. Attempts to reach Namdar Realty Group and Empire Capital were also unsuccessful by press time.
