Gotham Assets files $65M pre-foreclosure at 404 Fifth Ave.

Sami Souid‘s Gotham Assets filed a pre-foreclosure action in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Monday alleging a loan with an original principal of $65 million and secured by Chetrit Group‘s 404 Fifth Avenue, was in default. The plaintiff in the action was 404 Holding LLC, while the Chetrit Group entity was 404 Fifth Owner LLC.

Court cases represent the position of one party and are not necessarily accurate or complete.

Case LINK

This is the second pre-foreclosure action filed against the property this year. Blackstone filed the first action in January 2025, Index number 850052/2025, but that action was withdrawn on June 27, 2025.

The Chetrit Group borrowed the $65 million from Signature Bank in 2016.

According to the new complaint, “The Note had a maturity date of June 1, 2024, extended to December 31, 2024 (the “Maturity Date”), upon which date Borrower was required to remit to Plaintiff “[a]ll outstanding principal and all accrued and unpaid interest… Borrower failed to remit to Plaintiff the payment required under the Note on or before the Maturity Date, or at any time thereafter.”

Gotham Assets bought the loan on June 27, the same day the prior foreclosure was halted. (In that article, PincusCo initially incorrectly identified the note buyer as a different company, but the post has since been corrected.)

In an unusual detail, when the loan was assigned, the note buyer entity, 404 Holding LLC, was in care of the Chetrit Group at 1384 Broadway, 7th FloorNew York, NY 10018, but the company was registered at Gotham Assets in state corporation records.

The property

The office building in Garment District has 83,278 square feet of built space and 16,342 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 99,650 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 65 feet and is 141 feet deep with a total lot size of 9,965 square feet. The lot is irregular. 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 property is in the Individual Landmark. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $35.9 million. The most recent loan totaled 0.0 and was provided by Hirshmark Capital on June 27, 2025.

Prior sales and revenue

The 83,278-square-foot property generated revenue of $4.9 million or $59 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

Violations and lawsuits

According to city public data, the property has received one DOB violation, $1,250 in ECB penalties, and $5,300 in OATH penalties in the last year.

The property was involved in two lawsuits and zero bankruptcies over the past two years. The highest value suit was a $65 million commercial foreclosure concerning a loan filed on January 29, 2025, by Blackstone Group and Rialto Capital Advisors against Meyer Chetrit, Judah Chetrit, and Chetrit Group.

The neighborhood

In Garment District, The majority, or 69 percent of the 52.3 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 13 percent of the space. In sales, Garment District has the 8th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.4 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Garment District is the 6th most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 10.5 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 20 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 13 of the 29 commercial properties representing 1,188,572 square feet of the 1,676,094 square feet. The largest owner is Ab & Sons Group, followed by Bx Capital and then Chandrakant Patel. On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 46,824 square feet. It is a 143-unit, 46,824 square-foot hotel/dormitory/shelter (R-1) building submitted by Richard Fung with plans filed December 4, 2014 and permitted March 9, 2017.

The owner

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Chetrit Group owned at least 39 commercial properties with 2,494 residential units in New York City with 5,383,320 square feet and a city-determined market value of $1.1 billion. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $1.6 billion in debt, with top three lenders as Starwood Mortgage Capital, Bank of Montreal, and G4 Capital Partners respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 43 percent of the 5,383,320 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with office properties next occupying 36 percent of the space. The bulk, or 77 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Queens next at 23 percent of the space.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 402 5 Avenue, PincusCo identified 11 commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those 11 items, one was for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. It was a permit application filed on October 9, 2025 for the $350,039 renovation of 140,798-square-foot educational (E) building with zero residential units at 49 West 37th Street. Of those 11 items, four were sales above $5 million totaling $95.3 million. The most recent of the four was Edward Song which bought the 80,500-square-foot, 19-unit office building (O6) on 15 West 36th Street for $21.5 million from Walter & Samuels on December 2, 2024. Of those 11 items, six were loans above $5 million totaling $112.2 million. The most recent of the six was BX Capital in which borrowed $14.3 million from Derby Copeland Capital secured by the 91,221-square-foot, 14-unit office building (O6) on 29 West 36th Street on October 22, 2025.

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