Ilan Bracha has snapped up the smaller neighbor of the Scribner Building after both properties slipped back to the lender in a foreclosure sale.
Bracha’s IB Global closed on the vacant 15,000-square-foot office and retail building 3 East 48th Street for $9.5 million, a source with knowledge of the deal said. The sale represents the official next chapter for one of Joe Sitt’s former Midtown buildings that fell into distress after Thor Equities defaulted on its loan.
The deal reflects the steep reset in Midtown’s older office and retail stock, as a pair of once-prized Fifth Avenue buildings are being broken apart and sold at a fraction of their peak valuation. While the smaller property traded at its 2011 price, the overall investment paints a less rosy picture. Thor paid $99 million for the Scribner Building, shelling out a total of $108.5 million to assemble the site into a sizable retail footprint. UBS originated a $105 million mortgage on the portfolio in 2014, when it was valued at $180 million.
But Thor defaulted on the loan in 2020, and a CMBS trustee sued the firm in 2023, alleging it failed to invest in the properties. By the time of the foreclosure, unpaid interest and fees had pushed the total debt to roughly $151 million, court records show. The two buildings were appraised at $61 million last March, according to Morningstar.
The lender seized the property along with the adjacent Scribner Building at 597 Fifth Avenue in a June foreclosure auction after Thor defaulted on a $105 million CMBS loan the two properties backed. Bobby Cayre’s Aurora Capital Associates and Edmond M. Safra’s AVRS Partners are in contract to buy the larger Fifth Avenue building.
The smaller six-story building is zoned for just under 38,000 square feet of commercial space, with potential to expand through the acquisition of air rights from nearby properties. Bracha is weighing plans for a mixed-use tower with retail, office and residential components, or repositioning the building as a single-tenant retail asset, a source said.
Bracha declined to comment. A JLL team led by Andrew Scandalios, David Giancola and Drew Isaacson brokered the sale.
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