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Lalezarian Properties snags Murray Hill development site for $80M
Riese Organization sold properties at the corner of 34th Street and Third Ave
Kevin Lalezarian bought a development site at the corner of 34th Street and Third Avenue in Murray Hill for nearly $80 million.
Lalezarian, head of the family-owned Lalezarian Properties based in New Hyde Park, paid $79.5 million to purchase the five parcels from the Riese Organization, property records show.
Representatives for Lalezarian and Riese were not immediately available for comment.
The five properties had addresses at 207-211 East 34th Street and 507-511 Third Avenue. A handful of five-story tenement buildings sit on the site, which all told has a little more than 120,000 square feet of development rights.
That brings the purchase price to nearly $645 per buildable square foot. JPMorgan provided Lalezarian with a $45 million to finance his purchase.
The Riese Organization’s Mark Stempel represented the company in-house in the off-market deal. Amit Doshi, who left Besen & Associates earlier this year for Meridian Capital Group amid a contentious lawsuit with his former company, and Besen’s Matthew Garcia represented Lalezarian.
Last year China Overseas Land & Investment a subsidiary of the state-owned development giant China State Construction Engineering Corporation, paid $550 per buildable square foot to buy a development site at the opposite corner of 34th Street and Third Avenue from Extell Development for $75 million.
The Riese Organization had owned the properties since the late 1990s. The company is one of the largest restaurant operators in the city and also a major property owner, and often locates its restaurants in buildings it owns.
Lalezarian, meanwhile, is developing a 250-unit rental tower in the Hudson Yards neighborhood at 515 West 36th Street.