UWS apartment building sells for $20M at LA bankruptcy auction

Manhattan-based real estate owner Robert Gilardian won a 16-story Upper West Side apartment building tied up in an epic decade-long dispute, with a $20.1 million bid made in a bankruptcy auction in Los Angeles yesterday afternoon.

Gilardian offered the highest price for 114 West 86th Street, beating out three other approved bidders who participated in the live auction in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles, said Lipa Lieberman, a director at Eastern Consolidated, who was present at the sale.

The other bidders were Orin Managment, which is controlled by members of the Sohn family, and residential owner Vito Sacchetti.

The property sold for a gross rent multiple of about 20, and a price per square foot of about $400, Lieberman said. He said interest had been high since the news broke of the auction on The Real Deal website.

“We walked 25 buyers through the building [over the past several weeks]. There was a tremendous amount of interest,” with more than 100 people signing confidentiality agreements, Lieberman said. He and David Schechtman, a senior director at Eastern Consolidated, were the exclusive brokers representing the court in the auction.

Gilardian did not respond to a request for comment.

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The 49-unit rental was tied up in an inheritance dispute between Claudia Raffone, the daughter of property owner Traute Raffone, who died in 2007, and Truate’s husband Henry Douglas Campbell, for years.

Claudia Raffone and her husband, along with Lieberman and the judge, were among those present in the Los Angeles courtroom.

Gilardian, an owner of his real estate firm the Gilar Group, is an owner of several Manhattan properties such as 315 Fifth Avenue and the apartment building 324 West 84th Street, city property records show. He is also an owner of Isabella Fashions, an apparel company, based in Midtown.

None of the bidders was in Los Angeles, and they all participated by speakerphone. Gilardian bid for himself, while an attorney represented Bernstein Properties, which had placed the original stalking horse bid. Bernstein is the back-up winner if Gilardian is unable to close by June 20, in which case Bernstein has until the end of the month to buy it for just over $19 million.

The auction ended at about 6:40 p.m., New York time, several sources said.