Beijing-based restaurant chain Quanjude pays $14.3M for shuttered La Grenouille Midtown East building

The Beijing-based Michelin-awarded restaurant chain Quanjude, through the entity 8162024 LLC by signatory Duo Zhang, paid $14.3 million to the former owner of La Grenouille, Philippe Masson, through the entity 3 E. 52nd St. Corp. for the mixed-use building (K4) at 3 East 52nd Street in Midtown East, Manhattan. The expected use is owner-occupied.

The buyers have a website for the new restaurant, but no information. Quanjude’s Vancouver location was awarded a Michelin star in 2023.
The buyer financed the purchase with a $7.5 million loan from the Bank of Montreal.

The New York Post reported in September on La Grenouille’s closing and related history.

Quanjude, listed on the Shanghai stock exchange, has dozens of locations globally, and is owned by the publicly traded Beijing Tourism Group, which owns tourism and hospitality assets, itself owned by the Chinese government.

The deal closed on October 4, 2024 and was recorded on November 4, 2024. The property has 5,380 square feet of built space and 19,728 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 25,100 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $2,657 and the price per buildable square foot is $569 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 Philippe Masson was Philippe Masson. The signatory for Quanjude was Duo Zhang. The contract date was August 3, 2024. This is the location of the well-known French restaurant La Grenouille (which means ‘the frog’ in French), and opened in 1962. Philippe Masson owned the restaurant after taking it over from his brother Charles Masson Jr.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Quanjude had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Philippe Masson had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The 5,380-square-foot property generated revenue of $514,721 or $96 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The mixed-use building in Midtown East has 5,380 square feet of built space and 19,728 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 25,100 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 25 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,510 square feet. The zoning is C5-3 which allows for up to 15 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 10 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $2.7 million.

Violations and lawsuits

The property was involved in one lawsuit and zero bankruptcies over the past two years. The suit was a $3.7 million commercial foreclosure concerning a loan filed on March 8, 2024, by Silverman Group against Philippe Masson. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received $2,640 in OATH penalties 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 Midtown East, The majority, or 81 percent of the 62.6 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 7 percent of the space. In sales, Midtown East has the 5th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.7 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Midtown East is the 2nd most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 16.3 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 26 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There were two pre-foreclosure suit filed among other mixed-use buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of five of the 13 commercial properties representing 1,544,273 square feet of the 2,594,485 square feet. The largest owner is Fisher Brothers, followed by SL Green Realty and then Madison Capital.
On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 155,883 square feet. It is a 155,883 square-foot business (B) building submitted by Rolex Realty Company and filed by Robert Kaden with plans filed June 23, 2021 and permitted January 31, 2023.

The majority, or 89 percent of the 2.6 million square feet of built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 9 percent of the space.

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