Kahng family pays $12M for Midtown West townhomes famous from ‘Sex in the City’

The Kahng family office called Arboretum Capital through the entity Arboretum Management 3 LLC paid $12 million to Anthony Yurgaitis, husband of the late George Malkemus, through the entity M&Y Realty II, LLC for the commercial townhouses at 31 and 33 West 54th Street in Midtown West, Manhattan.
The deal closed on February 3, 2025 and was recorded on February 10, 2025. The two properties have 16,901 square feet of built space and 15,220 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 32,128 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $710 and the price per buildable square foot is $373 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 signatory for Anthony Yurgaitis and George Malkemus was Gary Kleiman. The signatory for Arboretum Capital was Stephen S. Kahng. The contract date was December 31, 2024.

This is the former location of fashion shoe retailer Manolo Blahnik, which closed in 2019.

The seller is Anthony Yurgaitis, the husband of the late high-fashion shoe executive George Malkemus. Malkemus died in 2021. The couple owned the properties together. The store became famous through an episode of Sex in the City, when Sarah Jessica Parker’s character Carrie Bradshaw said she had a “religious experience” while shopping there. Malkemus was the president of Manolo Blahnik USA from the early 1980s until leaving to launch his own shoe brand in 2019 with Sarah Jessica Parker.

Traded reported the brokers as Newmark agents including Adam Doneger.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Arboretum Capital had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Anthony Yurgaitis had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The two properties with a total of 16,901 square feet of built space generated revenue of $1.1 million per year or $65 per square foot. The sale price per square foot was $710.

The property

The two office buildings in Midtown West has 16,901 square feet of built space and 15,220 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 32,128 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 40 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of approximately 4,000 square feet. The most recent loan totaled $8 million and was provided by Signature Bank on August 12, 2020.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the properties for the past 24 months. In addition, according to city public data, the properties have received two DOB violations and $1,300 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

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 Midtown West, The majority, or 75 percent of the 75.9 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 14 percent of the space. In sales, Midtown West has the 3rd highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $2.6 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Midtown West is the most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 31.1 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 41 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other office buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On the tax block of 31 West 54th Street, PincusCo has identified the owners of 18 of the 28 commercial properties representing 1,207,757 square feet of the 1,502,530 square feet. The largest owner is SL Green Realty, followed by Sol Goldman Investments and then Warwick Hotels & Resorts.
On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 432,306 square feet. It is a 96-unit, 432,306 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Skyline Developers and filed by Leonard Wilf with plans filed May 8, 2020 and permitted February 8, 2023.

The majority, or 49 percent of the 1.5 million square feet of built space are hotel buildings, with office buildings next occupying 48 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that George Malkemus owned at least two commercial properties in New York City with 15,379 square feet and a city-determined market value of $5.3 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $8 million in debt, borrowed from Signature Bank. Within the portfolio, all identified are office properties. They are all located in Manhattan.

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