Gemini Real Estate Advisors Completes $78M Sale of Jade Hotel
By Liam La Guerre January 6, 2016 9:02 pm
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Real estate firm Bridgeton Holdings has closed on its $78 million purchase of the Jade Hotel from Gemini Real Estate Advisors, whose founders are embroiled in an unrelated court battle.
Gemini auctioned the 113-key hotel between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York on Dec. 1, as Commercial Observer recently reported. Bridgeton Holdings was the stalking horse bidder for the property.
“We are pleased to have been able to complete the sale of the Jade Hotel,” Dante Massaro, a founder and principal of Gemini, said in a prepared statement. “Gemini conceived and developed the unique Jade concept, and the price we achieved confirms that the market fully recognized the value of the property and its location.”
A representative for Bridgeton Holdings did not immediately return a request for comment.
Gemini founders Mr. Massaro and Christopher La Mack were sued by their former partner, William Obeid, in 2014. Mr. Obeid placed lis pendens—filings that shows that there is a lawsuit regarding title of land pending—on the Jade Hotel as well as three other properties to try and stop sales of them.
To remove the lis pendens, Messrs. Massaro and La Mack filed the Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the Jade Hotel, the Best Western Seaport at 33 Peck Slip, the Wyndham Garden at 37 West 24th Street and a vacant site near Bryant Park at 36 West 38th Street.
Dallas-based Howard Hughes Corp. won the auction for the Best Western Seaport with a $38.3 million bid on Dec. 1, and Fortuna Realty Group had the winning bid for the Wyndham Garden at $60 million on Dec. 15. The Bryant Park site is planned to be auctioned as well, but still does not have a date set for the sale.
Meanwhile, the final pre-trial conference for the court case between the founders has been set for July 15 and the trial is expected to follow two weeks later.
