Isaac Chetrit, Yadidi plan Midtown tower of up to 80 stories

Investors have now amassed 375K buildable sf along Sixth Ave.

981-993 Sixth Avenue and 989 Sixth Avenue in the Garment District (inset: Stephen Meringoff)
981-993 Sixth Avenue and 989 Sixth Avenue in the Garment District (inset: Stephen Meringoff)

Investors Isaac Chetrit and Ray Yadidi are planning a mixed-use skyscraper of up to 80 stories in the Garment District, after closing Wednesday on the missing piece of an assemblage spanning 375,000 square feet, sources told The Real Deal.

The block-long Assemblage On Sixth Avenue between West 36th and 37th streets consists of two existing buildings and 235,000 square feet of adjacent air rights. Himmel + Meringoff Properties sold the air rights affiliated with the landmarked Haier Building at 1352-1362 Broadway, also known as 981-987 Sixth Avenue for an undisclosed price, sources said. The Haier Building itself is not part of the assemblage.

Given the as-of-right zoning, sources said the most probable use of the property is a mix of residential, hotel and retail.

Chetrit and Yadidi, who respectively run AB & Sons and Sioni Group with their families, have allocated a total of $280 million in investment. This includes the property and air rights acquisitions and pre-construction costs, sources said.

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The 21-story office building at 989-991 Sixth spans 96,000 square feet, while the one-story retail building at 993 Sixth Avenue offers 44,000 buildable square feet. Chetrit and Yadidi paid $49 million in 2007 for the former and $54.3 million in October for the latter, property records show.

In a span of three years, the building at 993 Sixth Avenue soared in value – by more than 350 percent. Empire Hotel Group, which paid $12 million for the building in 2012, abandoned plans to build a 122-key hotel on the site.

Demolition of the existing buildings won’t happen for at least three years, sources said.

Himmel + Meringoff declined to comment, as did Chetrit and Yadidi.