By: Ellen Cans

Legion Investment Group has apparently downsized plans for its upcoming Gramercy Park condo building, due to a lengthy court battle.

As reported by Crain’s NY, Midtown-based developer Legion recently filed plans with the Department of Buildings for a total of 61 residential units in its planned multi-building project in Gramercy Park, Manhattan. The company had assembled a four parcel project with frontage along Third Avenue.  The developer previously had touted plans to build a roughly 200-foot-tall condo building.  The recent filing is for two buildings directly adjacent to each other at 38 Gramercy Park East and at 152 E. 21st St, representing a much more modest plan.  The building on the Gramercy Park East site will be 11 stories high, standing 125 feet tall, and will span about 84,000 square feet, encompassing 13 residential units.

The building planned for the site of East 21st Street will be 14 stories high, stand 163 feet tall, and will span about 73,000 square feet, offering 48 residential units. Demolition plans will probably not be required for the site, as it is a vacant lot.  The filing did not specify if the two buildings would be physically attached in any way.  The architect of record listed on the filing is SLCE Architects, NY Yimby reported. The estimated completion date has not yet been announced. Legion did not immediately respond to Crain’s request for comment.

The 38 Gramercy Park East address, which is seemingly the same as 38 Gramercy Park North, is now the site of a 5-story co-op building with 36 residential units, per real estate database CoStar. Crain’s had previously reported on a May 2022 newsletter that the existing building’s co-op board of directors had sent to the residents, informing them that the board was negotiating with a developer, probably Legion, to sell part of the co-op’s air rights allowing the developer to build a roughly 200-foot-tall condo project. That building would have reportedly also included a support cantilever built roughly 15 feet up in the co-op.  In September 2022, that letter had been made public as part of a lawsuit from a co-op resident who challenged the board’s decision to sell those air rights to Legion.  In May, a judge had reportedly voided the air rights deal, and the resident’s lawsuit was thereby concluded recently.  The developer seems to have suffered a significant setback to its original plans.

Per Crain’s, the Gramercy Park building was put up for sale in November 2022, asking a cool $50 million.  The property doesn’t seem to have sold as yet, per property records.

Legion, an upstart firm led by Chief Executive Officer Victor Sigoura who has 16 years of experience with the company, has new developments worth over $7 billion across multiple sectors of the real estate industry. The company is also working on other projects include a posh 32-unit condo building at 109 E. 79th St. in the Upper East Side, as well as a 21-unit condo at 280-282A Nassau Ave. in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint.