Conservative activist Jordan Sekulow pays $16.5M for mixed-use townhouse in Lenox Hill

Conservative legal activist Jordan Sekulow through the entity 34 East 61st Street LLC paid $16.5 million to the affiliate of the design company Christian Liaigre, Petrus NY Corp. for the midblock two-unit mixed-use townhouse at 34 East 61st Street in Lenox Hill, Manhattan.
The deal closed on May 18, 2022 and was recorded on June 1, 2022. The property has 9,765 square feet of built space and 11,325 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 21,090 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,689 and the price per buildable square foot is $782 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 seller bought the property on September 29, 2010, for $10 million. Jordan Sekulow is the executive director for the American Center for Law and Justice. He is also the host of the Jordan Sekulow Show, a syndicated radio show, and son of Donald Trump attorney Jay Alan Sekulow. Jordan Sekulow’s signature matches the signature on a book signing.  Christian Liaigre was a well-known designer who died in 2020. The firm occupied the ground floor. He was identified as the CEO of the seller entity.

Prior sales and revenue

The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Rod Feldman, head officer and Paul Xuereb, officer. The business entity is Petrus Ny Corp.

The property

The 34 East 61st Street parcel has frontage of 21 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,109 square feet. The zoning is C5-1 which allows for up to 4 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 $4.2 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property since September of 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the property has not received any significant violations in the last year.

Development

For the tax lot building, it received its initial certificate of occupancy on June 20, 2018. There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $5 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Lenox Hill, the majority, or 56 percent of the 91.2 million square feet of commercial built space are residential elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 17 percent of the space. In sales, Lenox Hill has the 3rd highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $2.2 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Lenox Hill has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 436,108 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 0.48 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 eight of the 18 commercial properties representing 1,049,517 square feet of the 1,753,462 square feet. The largest owner is Jenel Management, followed by Etoile 660 Madison LLC and then Partyoftwo LLC.

The majority, or 47 percent of the 1.3 million square feet of built space are hotel buildings, with office buildings next occupying 46 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 34 East 61st Street, PincusCo identified 23 commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those 23 items, one was for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. It was an initial temporary certificate of occupancy issued on March 9, 2021 for the $2.1 million renovation of 135,169-square-foot M building with no residential units at 18 East 60th Street.
Of those 23 items, 18 were sales above $5 million totaling $632 million. The most recent of the 18 was Kristin T. Abati which bought one condo unit in the 43-unit mixed-use building (RD) on 520 Park Avenue for $32.7 million from Zeckendorf Development on May 26, 2022.
Of those 23 items, four were loans above $5 million totaling $122 million. The most recent of the four was Jenel Management which borrowed $80 million from Signature Bank secured by one commercial condo unit in the 264,498-square-foot, two-unit mixed-use building (RC) on 660 Madison Avenue on February 24, 2022.

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