Extell unloads Midtown East assemblage

Buyer is same team that purchased famed eatery Elaine’s

138 East 50th Street and Gary Barnett
138 East 50th Street and Gary Barnett

Gary Barnett’s Extell Development sold a development site that lies within Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ambitious Midtown East rezoning plan last week to a joint venture including Robert Skolnick and Ceruzzi Properties, several sources told The Real Deal.

The site includes 138 East 50th StreetAnd 151 East 49th Street, between Third and Lexington avenues, as well as air rights from neighboring buildings. The two sites combined have development rights of just over 70,000 square feet, according to PropertyShark, in addition to an unknown amount of air rights. The price of the deal was not immediately known.

Skolnick and Ceruzzi purchased the site of the famed restaurant Elaine’s at 1703-1705 Second Avenue on the Upper East Side in January 2012 for $8.045 million.

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Extell has been pruning its collection of development sites in recent months. This month, the developer sold 112 West 25th Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, to hotel developer John Lam for $67.5 million. And in June, the firm announced it would swap its 1 Hudson Yards site, with plans for a 1.7 million-square-foot commercial tower, with a site at Eighth Avenue and West 45th Street that the Related Companies owns with Boston Properties.

Barnett declined to comment, and Skolnick and Ceruzzi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.