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Brandon Miller’s REEC One Year After Principal’s Death

A new white brick office building sits vacant on a neglected corner of East 121st Street and Third Avenue in East Harlem, its front doors locked on a recent Friday. Six miles south, orange construction barricades and a chain link fence surround another boutique office development that is nearing completion and now seeking tenants.

These two buildings appear to be all that’s left of Brandon Miller’s family-owned real estate development company, Real Estate Equities Corporation, a year after his tragic death. Miller’s July 3, 2024, suicide at his estate in the Hamptons exposed not only a personal drama but a tangled web of debts and real estate deals gone bad.

While Miller’s financial and legal problems grabbed headlines last summer and fall, his partner at REEC, Mark Seigel, remained silent. A password to REEC’s website hid the firm’s real estate projects from public view. Current and past employees, as well as brokers and lenders associated with projects, all declined to answer questions a full year later. 

But some movement at the sites — construction, leasing efforts and loan transactions — gives a hint of how the company’s strategic shift from residential and commercial building to an almost exclusive focus on office projects fared. The pivot came at a bad time, but the office market has since made a comeback, with new office inventory drying up and companies expanding. It’s unclear whether that recovery came in time for Miller’s projects. 

The empty buildings, along with new lawsuits and the loss of two Manhattan development sites, add to the intrigue that continues to follow REEC. 

East Harlem life sciences

The East Harlem office was REEC’s last project developed before Miller’s death. It has a new lender, but its future remains unclear.

Raven Capital Management bought the loan secured by 2226 Third Avenue in July from Related Companies. The original loan amount was $40 million, but it is not known how much the investment management firm paid for the loan or how much outstanding debt there is.

“I think it was a good investment for them and they’re hanging onto it for dear life.”
Lawrence Khedouri, owner of land at REEC’s 2226 Third Avenue office development

REEC bought the leasehold for the property in 2020 for $27 million and developed a 10-story office building for life sciences tenants. It wrapped up construction on the 130,000-square-foot project in September 2023 and dubbed the development Labs @121. A CBRE team was handling leasing, according to the building’s website.

But that website appears to have been taken down. Trash littered the sidewalk on a recent visit and the ground floor was vacant; the upper floors appeared to be vacant too. Seigel did not respond to requests for comment on the status of the building. Land owner Lawrence Khedouri said REEC is up to date on payments.

“I think it was a good investment for them and they’re hanging onto it for dear life,” Khedouri said. 

Boutique office

There is more to see at an East Village office property developed by REEC, where leasing began early this year.

Work appears nearly complete at 1 St. Mark’s Place, a nine-story building with wraparound terraces and a curved brick and glass facade on the corner of Third Avenue. A JLL team is handling leasing, according to the building’s website. A JLL spokesperson did not respond to a request for an update on leasing.

REEC bought the leasehold on the property for $29 million from Edward Gabay and filed plans in 2018 to build a 53,000-square-foot office building entirely on spec. Before foundations were even dug, Madison Capital Realty tried foreclosing on the property in 2021. 

Parkview Financial rescued the project with a $70 million refinance the following year. At one point, REEC fell behind on loan payments at the project, Parkview Financial CEO Paul Rahimian said last summer. It was unclear whether REEC is currently up to date and Rahimian did not respond to recent requests for comment.

To add to REEC’s headaches, the owner of a neighboring multifamily property sued the developer in April for failing to properly underpin the building during construction, allegedly causing “significant damage.” 

Bowery blowup

That isn’t the only lawsuit REEC has faced since Miller’s death. The owner of a Nolita property once slated for development by REEC sued the developer and its principals for abandoning an ill-fated office project at 156-166 Bowery Street.

Ari Zagdanski’s Kinsmen Property Group claims REEC owes more than $2.9 million in ground rent at the Bowery site, according to a lawsuit filed in March in state Supreme Court. Kinsmen is suing REEC, Seigel and Candice Miller, Brandon’s wife and the administrator of his estate

2226 Third Avenue (Google Maps)

Seigel fired back at the lawsuit, claiming in an affidavit that REEC spent $4 million in costs related to architectural, engineering and permitting, and the landlord agreed to either a credit back or a portion of the equity under a new developer. 

REEC took over the leasehold for the 15,000-square-foot assemblage in February 2021 in a deal valued at $50 million and planned to build a six- or seven-story mixed-use office building. 

Instead, REEC failed to pay the ground rent or made partial payments for several months in 2024, Kinsmen’s suit alleges. REEC also bailed on more than $600,000 in real estate taxes, which Kinsmen paid to avoid interest and penalties, the suit alleges. The landlord slapped REEC with a default notice last August and terminated REEC’s ground lease in January.

Highline hell

Across town, a long-vacant development site near the High Line once owned by Miller recently found a buyer after years of drama surrounding the property.

Toll Brothers is in contract to buy 118 10th Avenue in Chelsea from Benny Barmapov for $53 million, a source familiar with the deal said. The deal comes after Barmapov took the property back from Miller, collapsed the ground lease and put it up for sale.

REEC bought the leasehold from Barmapov in a January 2017 deal valued at $21 million and planned a 10-story, 100,000-square-foot office building with ground-floor retail. But the office project was never built and the leasehold changed hands again two years later when an entity tied to GDS Development Management and Swedish real estate firm Klövern AB took it over.

The leasehold was transferred back to Miller in December 2023, and he stopped paying the ground lease in early 2024, Barmapov said.

Before his death, Miller pledged his equity interests in the entity controlling the property to a company called DIA Family Holdings. A friend of Miller who lent him $1.5 million secured by Miller’s interest in the property took control of the entity that owns the leasehold on the property and later filed for bankruptcy protection.

When contacted about the pending sale, Barmapov said: “Life goes on. It’s as simple as that.”




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