Upper West Side Landlord Owing Over $200M Files For Bankruptcy

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — A real estate firm that operates buildings on the Upper West Side has filed for bankruptcy for several of its properties on West 107th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam.

A bankruptcy filing shows that the Emerald Equity Group has chosen to file Chapter 11 for its buildings at 203, 210, 220 and 230 West 107th Street, along with multiple buildings on East 117th Street in Harlem.

PincusCo and ILoveTheUpperWestSide were the first publications to report on the subject.

Emerald Equity Groups requests within the filing that all properties get transferred to the asset management firm LoanCore Capital.

The Emerald Equity Group owes a staggering $203M to LoanCore Capital, according to the filings.

The debt was created after the Emerald Equity Group's initial plan of converting apartments within the building to condominiums was more or less blocked by the passage of the New York Housing Stability and Tenant Protect Act of 2019.

The real estate firm purchased the Upper West Side and Harlem buildings in 2016, but the passing of the act in 2019 changed the number of tenants already within the building having to consent to a condominium conversion from 15 percent to 51 percent.

The front page of Emerald Equity Group's website says that the firm owns over 1,500 units in "developing areas" of Manhattan. Outside of the five boroughs, it also owns buildings in Georgia, Ohio, Missouri, Texas, New Jersey, and Tennessee.

One of the Upper West Side buildings included in the bankruptcy filings that Emerald owns is 210 West 107th Street, which had the most number of violations of any building in the neighborhood during 2020.

The 54-unit building had 172 violations over the past year, according to the recently released "2020 Landlord Watchlist."

The annual ranking is compiled by the Public Advocate's office and ranks the worst landlords in New York City based on the number of violations received.