Toll Brothers Closes on Brandon Miller’s Former Chelsea Site

Almost a year after signing a contract, Toll Brothers acquired a long-vacant development site in Chelsea once tied to the late Brandon Miller.

The Pennsylvania-based homebuilder purchased 118 10th Avenue from long-time owner Benny Barampov for $53 million, Crain’s reported. The closing price was in line with the contract reported back in June.

The parcel next to the High Line has the capability for a residential condominium development up to 85,000 square feet in size. It’s unclear what Toll has planned for the site, though.

Adirondack Capital Partners’ Michael Hunter Coghill and Chad Sinsheimer represented the seller in the deal; Sinsheimer called it a “highly competitive process” due to the site’s size, frontage and zoning.

The 12,000-square-foot undeveloped parcel, composed of two adjacent properties, is where Miller once sought to develop a 10-story, 100,000-square-foot office building with ground-floor retail space.

Miller’s Real Estate Equities Corporation purchased the leasehold from Barampov in January 2017 in a deal valued at $21 million. The project never materialized, however, and an entity tied to GDS Development Management and Swedish real estate firm Klövern AB took over the leasehold interest two years after Miller.

Miller reacquired the leasehold interest in December 2023, but stopped paying the ground lease early the following year. Prior to his death in July 2024, Miller pledged his equity interests in the entity controlling the property to a company called DIA Family Holdings, which ultimately filed for bankruptcy protection, leading Barmapov to take the property back and collapse the ground lease. He put it up for sale last February.

Toll Brothers, founded by Robert and Bruce Toll in 1967, is one of the largest homebuilders in the United States and a Fortune 500 company.

Its high-rise condominium division, Toll Brothers City Living, has completed construction on more than 7,200 luxury units. In New York, that includes the Pierhouse in Brooklyn Bridge Park in partnership with Starwood Capital Group, as well as 1110 Park Avenue and 121 East 22nd Street.

— Holden Walter-Warner