LA Developer Ben Nehmadi Faces Foreclosure on Midtown A&E Tower

Wells Fargo Bank has sued Los Angeles developer Ben Nehmadi, alleging his family office, Republic Investment Company, defaulted on a $95 million mortgage covering the Midtown office building where A&E Networks is headquartered, Crain’s New York Business reported this week. City mortgage records confirm the loan and show it reaches beyond the A&E building alone.

Why it matters

ACRIS shows the $95 million debt is not a single-building loan. The 2019 mortgage consolidation names both 227 E 45 LLC, the entity that owns the Midtown tower housing A&E Television Networks, and 137 and 138 Realty LLC, tied to a second Nehmadi-controlled site on East 25th Street near Baruch College, as co-borrowers under one instrument, care of Republic Investment Co. That structure means a default on one property can pull both into the same foreclosure fight, and it matters for the media tenant too: A&E’s lease is anchored in a building whose ownership is now in litigation with its lender, even though nothing in the city’s records suggests the tenancy itself is at risk. Republic Investment Company, founded in 1983, has built a multi-decade New York office and multifamily portfolio under Nehmadi; a foreclosure suit on its flagship media-tenant asset is a marker of how far Midtown office distress has reached even landlords with a long local track record and a single stable, brand-name tenant.

The numbers

The loan itself is recorded as document 2019040100533001, a mortgage consolidation, extension and modification agreement dated January 17, 2019 and recorded April 2, 2019 under CRFN 2019000104298, with a document amount of $95,000,000. City tax records list 227 East 45th Street as a 16-story, 151,617-square-foot office building completed in 1928 and altered in 1989 and 2012, owned by 227 E 45 LLC. A separate 2024 filing against the same tax lot lists A&E Television Networks, LLC at 235 East 45th Street, which reconciles the address discrepancy in early reporting: the tower’s legal and tax address is 227 East 45th Street, and its ACRIS legal description carries a full street-number range of 227-233, while A&E’s own mailing address, 235 East 45th Street, is simply a different entrance on the same building footprint, not a separate site.

What’s next

Crain’s reports the suit was filed in New York State Supreme Court; the court’s NYSCEF case-search system blocks automated lookups, so the index number could not be independently confirmed. As of the most recent ACRIS filings on the property, no notice of pendency or lis pendens had yet been recorded against block 1319, lot 12, and no satisfaction or assignment appears against the 2019 mortgage, consistent with the loan still being outstanding. A lis pendens filing, if and when it posts to ACRIS, would formalize the foreclosure action in the property record and is the next document worth watching alongside other New York office-loan distress this cycle, including a separate Midtown East foreclosure move nearby.