Clipper Equity Buys Harlem Development Site From Durst for $50M

David Bistricer’s Clipper Equity will pay more than $50 million for a roughly 36,000-square-foot vacant plot of land in Harlem.

Clipper has purchased the long-delayed development site at 1800 Park Avenue — which could accommodate more than 680,000 buildable square feet — from the Durst Organization, The Real Deal reported.

Bob Knakal’s BKREA brokered the deal. Durst declined to comment, while Knakal and a spokesperson for Clipper did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Clipper’s plans for the property are not clear, but a marketing memo from BKREA said the fully demolished and excavated site “represents a groundbreaking development site with potential to significantly impact the neighborhood.”

The deal marks the fourth time the property across the street from the Harlem-125th Street train station above Park Avenue has traded hands in the past 20 years.

In 2007, Vornado Realty Trust bought the site from the New York College of Podiatric Medicine for $39.5 million, with plans to build a 630,000-square-foot office tower, as Commercial Observer previously reported.

Those plans were dropped in 2009 and Vornado sold the property in 2013 for $66 million to Bruce Eichner and Continuum Company, which had plans to develop a 596,000-square-foot residential building on the site with street-level retail, a garage and 600 apartment units, CO reported at the time.

After Eichner missed payments on his $100 million loan on the property, Durst purchased the debt and bought the site in 2016 for $91 million, property records show.

But any plans to build on the site were put on hold in 2022 when the state’s 421a tax abatement expired, leaving developers to rely on the new 485x replacement program, TRD reported.

News of the deal comes after Clipper landed a $160 million loan to refinance a newly completed multifamily development at 953 Dean Street in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, earlier this month, CO reported.

And last May, the firm closed a $430 million loan for Tower 77, its three-tower multifamily property at 77 Commercial Street on the Greenpoint waterfront in Brooklyn.

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.