Siegel Family's 50-Year Hold on Lexington Corner Ends for $28.1M

A group led by investor David Burris paid $28.1 million for three connected Upper East Side buildings at 780 and 782 Lexington Avenue and 136 East 61st Street, ending the family of the late Robert Siegel’s long hold on the Lexington Avenue corner, according to Commercial Observer. The roughly 16,244 square foot assemblage carries 11 retail units and 8 apartments, and the deals closed in three separate transactions in late August.

Why it matters

ACRIS deeds recorded August 27 show the sellers as the trust under paragraph sixth of Samuel Siegel’s will, with Rita Pierre now the successor trustee, a sign the family that built this corner has passed the property to a professional administrator rather than an heir. The buying entities, 780 Lex Partnership L.P., Samuro Partnership L.P. and Caro Partnership L.P., all share an address at 10 West 46th Street, tying the three separate purchases to one buying group even though each lot closed under its own LP. Burris already owns the adjacent office building at 770 Lexington Avenue through Terra Holdings, and broker Chris Varjan of Lee & Associates NYC, who worked the deal, called it “a play to get control of the whole blockfront along Lexington.” For developers watching Manhattan avenue retail, a buyer already anchored next door assembling the rest of a corner points toward a future redevelopment or repositioning play, not a passive hold, on a stretch of New York’s Upper East Side that has already seen other long-held storefronts change hands this year, including a family-owned building near an Upper West Side bar’s forced exit.

The numbers

ACRIS’s own document trail is more specific than the “50-plus year” framing in the coverage of the sale. The 1973 deed for 780 Lexington Avenue, the corner building, shows Samuel Siegel and Robert G. Siegel buying it from Hyperion 72nd Corp for a hold of 53 years. But 136 East 61st Street only joined the family’s holdings in a 1983 deed bought from the Cowap family, a 43-year hold, and the 782 Lexington Avenue deed from the same year is an internal transfer from Samuel Siegel’s estate executors into a family trust, not an outside purchase. All three 2026 deeds recite $0 in consideration, and the city’s rolling sales file lists the same $0 for the July 9 sale date, so the $28.1 million figure traces to Commercial Observer’s sources, not a stated amount in the public record.

What’s next

Neither the deed filings nor Commercial Observer’s report named a redevelopment plan for the site, and Varjan described the buyers as “long-term, patient capital” rather than an immediate builder. With Burris now controlling both sides of the block, from his existing 770 Lexington office tower to the newly acquired corner, the next filing to watch is any DOB application at the assembled lots, which would be the first public sign of what “the whole blockfront” is meant to become.