Developer Closes $93 Million Deal for Former Upper East Side Gristedes

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Real estate firm Extell Development is one property closer to building its apartment megacomplex on the Upper East Side. The development firm recently closed a $93 million deal to purchase a 128,250-square-foot building that formerly housed a Gristedes supermarket, according to records filed with the city this month.

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City records also showed that Extell secured a $54 million mortgage to help finance the deal.

The former Gristedes is located at 350 E. 86th St. between two properties also owned by Extell, reported New York YIMBY. Extell eventually plans to build a 20-story, 200-unit condo building on the land currently inhabited by the Gristedes and the tenement buildings flanking it, YIMBY reported.

Plans to demolish the current buildings have not been submitted with the Department of Buildings yet.

The deal represents another blow to supermarket chain Gristedes, which currently operates at a loss of "a few million" dollars a year, John Catsimatidis told the Commercial Observer. Catsimatidis runs Gristedes under the Red Apple Group, which profits from its other investments.

"We’re able [to survive], but only because we want to,” Catsimatidis told the Commercial Observer in December. “If the supermarket business was the only business that we did, we would be out of business.”

A Gristedes location at 40 East End on 81st St. closed July 16.

Here are the documents detailing the sale of 350 E. 86th St.:

[Photo: Google Maps street view circa September 2015]