Just weeks after revealing plans to convert the Midtown office tower they bought online at a bargain price, the property’s Texas-based owners are now accused of failing to pay nearly $28 million in property taxes on the building.
Safehold, the owner of the land beneath the 23-story building at 135 West 50th Street, claims McKinney, Texas-based Thakkar Developers has failed to pay $9 million in property taxes that were due Jan. 1, 2025, and have since racked up almost $28 million in unpaid taxes, interest and other penalties.
The land owner accuses the Thakkar family of an “incontrovertible, continuing, and egregious failure to perform the most fundamental obligations under a long-term ground lease” in a lawsuit filed this week in state Supreme Court.
After the Thakkars failed to meet repeated extension deadlines and forbearance agreements, Safehold notified the family on Monday that it was terminating the ground lease and demanded they surrender the building, according to the lawsuit. The Thakkars have refused to vacate the property, and the land owner is now seeking their immediate ejection, according to the complaint, which was first reported by Crain’s.
The Thakkars did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The building traded at a steep discount in 2024 after a two-day auction on the online platform Ten-X. The Thakkar family acquired the leasehold for $8.5 million — roughly 97 percent less than the $332.5 million that UBS paid for the property in 2006.
Built in 1963, the building is 35 percent occupied, according to CoStar data. Co-founder Sam Thakkar said in April that he planned to convert the upper floor of the building to residential, continue to use the lower floors as office space and keep existing retail tenants remaining in place.
The property was the firm’s first real estate purchase outside of Texas. The family owns a tax planning business in McKinney, Texas. Thakkar’s website describes the firm as a development consultant, not a developer itself, and lists five projects, none bearing any resemblance to a Manhattan office building.
Read more
Commercial
New York
Texas family revealed as buyer of heavily discounted office tower
Commercial
New York
Midtown office tower that traded in online auction headed for resi redo