Rybak buys Chaim Miller’s Brighton Beach site, plans 22-story tower

Sergey Rybak picked up a troubled Brighton Beach development site once owned by Chaim Miller and plans to build a 22-story apartment building.

Rybak [TRDataCustom] closed on the purchase of 271 Sea Breeze Avenue on June 7 for $13.5 million, six months after buying the defaulted debt on the development site. GFI Realty’s Erik Yankelovich and Yosef Katz brokered the January deal.

Chaim Miller scooped up the site at auction in 2013 for $12.7 million with plans for a $85 million apartment tower, borrowing $11.25 million from a Madison Realty Capital affiliate to fund the purchase. Miller later defaulted on his loans, and in 2015 Madison filed to foreclose. A month later Rybak, who was in contract to buy the site for $14.1 million, filed a lawsuit against Miller claiming he failed to renew permits. Their deal fell apart.

In January of this year, the ownership entity of the site filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. That same month Rybak bought the debt note with the help of acquisition financing from Madison. After pushing for dismissal of the Chapter 11 case, Rybak reached a deal to buy the site outright in June.

“As the marketplace becomes more competitive it is important to fight for the right location!” Rybak said in a statement.

The planned tower will include 114 apartments, 32,000 square feet of community space and 200 parking spots.

In January 2016, Rybak filed plans for a $77 million condo project on the site of the former El Greco Diner in nearby Sheepshead Bay. It’s the priciest condo offering to ever hit the neighborhood, which developers are increasingly targeting due to relatively inexpensive land prices.

(To view more of Rybak Development & Construction’s commercial sales transactions, click here)