January auction set for Argentine family’s Garment District building, $34.9M judgment

A referee appointed to manage the sale of 20 West 37th Street, a 69,701-square-foot office building in the Garment District, Manhattan, set a date of January 28, 2026, for the state foreclosure auction of the property, according to a notice of sale published on January 18. It said the latest judgment figure was $34.9 million, based on a loan with an original principal of $27.5 million, given in December 2016.

Case 850251/2024 LINK

The special servicer for bondholders of a securitized loan, GS Mortgage Securities Corporation II Commercial Mortgage Pass-Through Certificates, Series 2017-GS5, filed a pre-foreclosure action against the Argentinian owners on July 16, 2024, in Manhattan State Supreme Court. The building is owned by affiliates of the Neuss Group, which manages assets of the Neuss family of Argentina.

This is the second office building that the Neuss family owns in Manhattan to be the subject of a pre-foreclosure. The lender for the other building, 33 West 46th Street, filed to foreclose on a $19.5 million loan in September 2021. The court set a foreclosure auction date for that property on July 17, 2024, though it was not clear what the result of the auction was.

As for the 20 West 37th Street building, the Commercial Observer reported in March 2024 that the loan was placed into special servicing. Prior to that Crain’s reported the building appeared mostly vacant as of September 2023.

The Neuss family was convulsed by a femicide in 2020, in which one of the leaders of the family, Jorge Justo Neuss, killed his wife and then killed himself at a country club outside of Buenos Aires. Jorge Justo Neuss was a guarantor for the loan on 33 West 46th Street, according to the complaint.

The office building in Garment District has 69,701 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 63 feet and is 98 feet deep with a total lot size of 6,314 square feet. The zoning is M1-6 which allows for up to 10 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $14.4 million.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page.