Chetrit, Cornell Realty split holdings on 34th Street

Joseph Chetrit’s Chetrit Group and Shifra Hager’s Cornell Realty Management are splitting up a 34th Street retail portfolio the former partners spent more than a year assembling.

The developers two have dissolved their partnership and are each taking 80 feet of frontage along the street between Seventh and Eighth avenues, according to Crain’s.

Cornell is planning to develop a four-story, 35,000 square-foot retail project on its site at 257-263 West 34th Street that could attract a single-use tenant or several smaller retailers. Chetrit has not announced plans for his site, where the partners had originally proposed to build a 17-story hotel.

The area is already undergoing a transformation, spurred in part by large-scale projects such as Hudson Yards, Manhattan West and Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s recently announced plans to kick start the overhaul of the Farley Post Office and Penn Station.

Chetrit and Hager acquired a building that’s now part of Cornell’s site through a swap with Gravesend-based investor Charles D. Cohen, as The Real Deal reported.

The partners agreed to buy a three-story building at 261-263 West 34th Street from Cohen in March, then in December sold him a pair of one-story buildings a few doors to the east at 245-247 West 34th Street.

Cornell has secured a $48.5 million bridge loan — $42.5 million of which was provided at closing and $6 million at a later date — to buy out Chetrit and begin readying the site for development. Madison Realty Capital provided the financing. [Crain’s] – Rich Bockmann