Auction set for 11-unit building with $10.7M judgment, bankruptcy stay lifted

Seven months after the developers of an 11-unit residential building known as the Apollo, at 231 East 123rd Street in East Harlem, Manhattan placed the asset in bankruptcy, the property is set to be sold at a $10.7 million foreclosure auction on November 20, 2024, according to a recent state foreclosure notice of sale.

The developers of the building, Alex Halimi and Saul Mazor, placed the property in bankruptcy protection March 19, 2024, a day before the property that has a judgment totaling $10.7 million was originally set to sell at auction.

The owners filed the action in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, claiming both assets and liabilities between $1 million and $10 million. 231 E 123 LLC ch. 11 pdf

A Manhattan State Supreme Court referee scheduled an auction for March 20, 2024. The notice of sale was published on February 22, 2024.

This is the second bankruptcy for the property. The first was filed in Philadelphia, under case number: 2:21-bk-11469, but that was dismissed January 11, 2022.

The lender is an affiliate of the Evanston, Illinois-based hedge fund, Mangetar Capital, through its servicer Sharestates Investments. The borrowers are Alex Halimi and Saul Mazor. Halimi and Mazor bought the property, a former three-family, for $1.4 million, and then in July 2015 filed plans for an 11-unit building, borrowing $4.88 million in 2016 and another $1.2 million in 2019. The building has been subject to a large number of violations, and the city’s Department of Buildings does not reflect a certificate of occupancy for the structure.

Alex Halimi of 231 E 123 LLC submitted a new building construction project for an 11-unit, 8,563 square-foot residential (R-2) building on July 27, 2015 under job number 121193617 and permitted December 21, 2017. It called for the construction of a six-story building.

In March 2022, Magnetar’s entity filed the pre-foreclosure action.

Bankruptcy 24-10445-lgb LINK

Foreclosure 850052/2022 LINK