Less than two months after a previous bid failed, an iconic New York building, the “Flatiron,” was auctioned Tuesday for $161 million to a buyer group led by real estate developer Jeff Gural, the company announced the sale had organized.
• Also read: Nearly $6 million has been raised to protect Nina Simone’s birthplace
• Also read: A watch belonging to the last emperor of China has sold at auction for more than $5 million
The sale took place outdoors in Lower Manhattan in front of a hundred people and seven buyers were registered, Mannion Auctions told AFP.
Jeff Gural, 80, is no stranger to the Flatiron, representing 75% of the owners of the iron-shaped building.
The Flatiron, a 22-story, 87-meter office building at the intersection of 22nd Street, Fifth Avenue and Broadway, was built in two years and completed in 1902 in the Beaux-Arts style.
Its pointed shape, recognizable to all, which gave it its name, is explained by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway, the only thoroughfare in Manhattan that is not aligned with the island’s rectilinear plane.
On March 22, the building was sold for the first time for $190 million on behalf of the city to settle a dispute between its owners.
But the buyer, financier Jacob Garlick, founder of the Abraham Trust mutual fund, had not paid the $19 million upfront as of March 24.
The building could have already gone to Jeff Gural, head of GFP Real Estate, who had bid $189.5 million, but he preferred to wait for new auctions to be organized.
The Iron had been vacant since 2019, when its last tenant, MacMillan Publishers, left.
The five owners could neither agree on the renovation nor on the use. Four real estate companies – GFP Real Estate, Newmark, ABS Real Estate Partners and theprovente group – controlled it 75%.
The fifth partner, Nathan Silverstein, controlled the remaining 25%.
In 2021, the four companies sued Nathan Silverstein, accusing him of leaving the “Flatiron” blank.
The city judges had ordered the owners to auction the building.