Court moves forward with Flatiron Building partition sale

The Flatiron Building moved a step closer to a partition sale to resolve a partnership dispute between a group with a 75 percent stake in the building, the Sorgente Group, GFP Real Estate and ABS Real Estate Partners, and Nathan Royce Silverstein, an investor with a 25 percent stake. They own the property in the tenant-in-common structure.

The building is an individual city Landmark located at 175 Fifth Avenue in Flatiron. It currently has a $30 million senior loan provided by Apple Bank for Savings and is undergoing an extensive rehabilitation, which is a partial cause of the partition suit.

State supreme court Justice Joel Cohen late last month appointed a referee, attorney Peter Axelrod, to hire an auctioneer and prepare a public auction to be held in the rotunda at 60 Centre Street, the New York County Courthouse in Lower Manhattan. The judge did not lay out a fixed schedule, other than the auction must be held within four weeks of the publication of news of the auction.

This appointment comes 20 months after Sorgente, GFP and ABS filed the suit in July 2021 seeking a partition sale of the property. They cited a financially draining stalemate in decision making, allegedly caused by Silverstein’s competing vision for the building. Silverstein in December 2021 filed a competing lawsuit laying blame on GFP Real Estate and the leasing company Newmark & Company. That case remains active but has had no activity since July 2022.

The Sorgente Group owns 52.08 percent, two GFP Real Estate affiliated companies own a combined 18.75 percent, an ABS Real Estate Partners affiliate owns 4.17 percent, and Nathan Silverstein owns 25 percent.

As part of the sale process, the referee may conduct an accounting of the rents and expenses of the property. In addition, the parties may jointly withdraw the sale at any point before the auction, according to the decision.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page and link to DOB NOW portal.