Japanese restaurant group pays $6.7M to Walter & Samuels for retail in Murray Hill

Tokyo Ichiban Foods through the entity Tokyo Ichiban Foods, Co., Ltd. paid $6.7 million to Walter & Samuels through the entity Walsam 325 Lex, LLC for the retail condominium unit at 325 Lexington Avenue in Murray Hill, Manhattan. The expected use is cash flowing.
The deal closed on October 9, 2025 and was recorded on October 15, 2025. The property has 3,180 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $2,091 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 January 24, 2018, for $7.3 million. The signatory for Walter & Samuels was Jason Tillis and David Berley . The contract date was August 1, 2025. Tokyo Ichiban Foods Co., Ltd. operates Wokuni in Manhattan, and several restaurant chains in Japan, primarily focused on seafood, such as the tiger blowfish specialty restaurant Tora-fugu Tei and the sushi and live fish restaurant Sakana-no-manma.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Tokyo Ichiban Foods had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Walter & Samuels had not purchased any other properties and sold 16 properties in 13 transactions for a total of $186.6 million over the same time period.

The property

The retail condo in Murray Hill has 3,180 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has a total lot size of 3,180 square feet. The property has a 421A exemption that started in 2013 and expires in 2023. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $2.5 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months. 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, 2014. 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 Murray Hill, The majority, or 54 percent of the 11 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with office buildings next occupying 22 percent of the space. In sales, Murray Hill has had very little sales volume relative to other neighborhoods with $89.7 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Murray Hill has 2.2 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 11th highest in Manhattan. It had 3.3 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 30 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of nine of the 30 commercial properties representing 296,237 square feet of the 623,830 square feet. The largest owner is Daryl Hagler, followed by Solil Management and then Mark Harounian.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 37 percent of the 623,830 square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 35 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Walter & Samuels owned at least six commercial properties in New York City with 750,249 square feet and a city-determined market value of $105.8 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $99.7 million in debt, borrowed from Bank of America and Citibank. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 58 percent of the 750,249 square feet of built space are office properties, with industrial properties next occupying 41 percent of the space. The bulk, or 59 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Queens next at 41 percent of the space.

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