Isaac Chetrit and Jacob Aini won a bid Monday to buy a 14-story Midtown office building for $43 million at a bankruptcy auction, The Real Deal has learned.
The bidding for the 63,000-square-foot vacant property at 315 West 35th Street began at $25 million. Investor Frank Ng was the only other bidder, putting in an offer of $42.25 million.
Chetrit and Aini plan to close on the purchase in the next two weeks and subsequently convert the property into high-end residential condominiums, said Chetrit’s attorney Stephen Meister.
The total debt on the building is about $29 million, and the buyers will also pay $14 million in cash, Meister added.
A Marcus & Millichap team led by Peter Von Der Ahe, Joseph Koicim, Sean Lefkovits, J.D. Parker and John Krueger handled the bankruptcy sale.
“It has been a long process as we’ve been working on this sale for over two years,” Parker said in a statement. “It was a great outcome for the seller and all the creditors.”
In April, an LLC formerly associated with developer and diamond dealer Aaron Chitrik filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after defaulting on a nearly $25 million mortgage on the property.
Chetrit, who acquired the debt on the property for $10.75 million in 2010, is among the building’s creditors.
Chitrik bought the building for $16.2 million in 2006 and intended to convert it to condos. After the building’s lenders sought to foreclose on its debt, Chetrit stepped in to acquire the property’s mortgage amid various complications.
Chetrit could not be immediately reached for comment. The investor’s recent deals include the purchase of two Garment District buildings at 1412 and 1420 Broadway for $268 million total last year.