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Extell to buy church’s dev rights for big UES assemblage
Purchase is part of developer's plan for 250K sf project along First Avenue
An Upper East Side church is in contract to sell more than 100,000 square feet of development rights to an entity tied to Gary Barnett’s Extell Development for about $35.8 million.
The Church of Saint Monica, located at 413 East 79th Street, plans to sell 102,170 square feet of development rights at 406 East 80th Street to 79 East Owner LLC, according to a legal petition the church filed to close on the sale. The LLC is an entity of Extell Development, and the deal comes with an option for Extell to purchase an additional 6,748 square feet of development rights for $250 per square foot.
The church has owned 406 East 80th Street since at least 1976, according to property records, and it is currently home to the parish center. However, the church’s attorney Suzanne Tripp stressed that the parish is just selling development rights in the deal, not any actual property. She declined to comment further on the sale.
The Real Deal reported in late March that Barnett was in the end stages of securing an Upper East Side assemblage with more than 250,000 buildable square feet for a residential tower with a school on the ground floor. He has been working for more than a decade to complete ownership of the site along First Avenue, paying $19.2 million in 2007 for three of the sites, and he received a $118.2 million loan for the assemblage from the German bank Helaba in April.
Representatives for the Archdiocese of New York and Extell did not respond to requests for comment about the sale.
Extell recently closed on the purchase of 1514 First Avenue for $16.2 million, which is the corner property in its assemblage package.