Anti-abortion Catholic women’s group pays $7.5M for former armed services club in Murray Hill

The New York-based anti-abortion Catholic women’s organization Sisters of Life paid $7.5 million to the Soldiers’, Sailors’, Marines’ and Airmen’s Club for the former clubhouse building (P5) at 281-293 Lexington Avenue in Murray Hill, Manhattan. The expected use is owner-occupied.
The property was tied up in litigation stretching back nearly 20 years, which was settled with this sale.
The deal closed on September 8, 2025 and was recorded on September 23, 2025. The property has 19,440 square feet of built space and no air rights according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $383 per the PincusCo analysis. (The price per square foot analysis is the transaction price divided by square feet as reported in public records and assumes no air rights have been sold.)
The signatory for Soldiers’, Sailors’, Marines’, Coast Guard and Airmen’s Club was William McShane. The signatory for Sisters of Life was Leah Yates . The contract date was July 10, 2025.

The club had signed a previous contract, dated December 9, 2020, in which Hao Li, as buyer agreed to pay $9.225 million, as disclosed in a petition the club filed in 2022, as a nonprofit, to sell the property, 159802/2022, however that sale did not close.
The club signed the new contract in July 2025,  which was disclosed in the 2007 litigation, 600813/2007. The brokers were Cushman & Wakefield’s John F. Ciraulo, Craig Waggner, and Will Conrad and Capstone Associates’ Michael Keating.

As part of the sale, the club agreed to pay $4.7 million to settle existing litigation, including with the children of the developers of the adjacent residential cooperative building, James Conforti, Jr. and Stephen C. Lyras.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Sisters of Life had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Soldiers’, Sailors’, Marines’, Coast Guard and Airmen’s Club had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes William McShane, head officer and Hazel Cathers, officer. The business entity is Soldiers’,Sailors’,Marines’And Airmen’S.

The property

The specialty building in Murray Hill has 19,440 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 51 feet and is 80 feet deep with a total lot size of 4,080 square feet. The zoning is R10 which allows for up to 10 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $4.4 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months. In addition, according to city public data, the property has not received any significant violations in the last year.

Development

There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $1 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Murray Hill, The majority, or 54 percent of the 11 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with office buildings next occupying 22 percent of the space. In sales, Murray Hill has had very little sales volume relative to other neighborhoods with $82.2 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Murray Hill has 1.7 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 16th highest in Manhattan. It had 2.4 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 22 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 12 of the 31 commercial properties representing 222,776 square feet of the 327,700 square feet. The largest owner is Stonehenge Nyc, followed by Sol Goldman Investments and then Scharfman Organization.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 56 percent of the 327,700 square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 22 percent of the space.

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