REAL estate mogul Brandon Miller's company struggled to keep at least one major New York City project afloat and it faced foreclosure just three years before his death at 43. Brandon's company, Real Estate Equities Corporation (REEC), acquired the property at the corner of St. Mark's Place and Third Avenue, in Manhattan's East Village in 2017 when it signed a 99-year lease for $150 million, according to The Real Deal.
In 2019, the company received a $79 million loan from Hana Financial Group - with $48 million of that being sold to Madison Realty Capital as a first mortgage, per The Real Deal. But REEC appears to have hit a rough patch just a couple years later, with Covid-19 at least partially to blame. By 2021, Madison Realty Capital moved to foreclose after it claimed REEC defaulted on its mortgage.
Property records filed on June 23, 2022, exclusively revealed by The U.S. Sun, showed that the company acquired a new loan from Parkview Financial for $70 million, to save the struggling office building project from foreclosure.
"Construction delays caused by the pandemic and other factors, required the project to be restructured and the original loans underlying the leasehold to be recapitalized," Parkview Financial explained in a 2022 press release. "Parkview Financials’ loan includes the refinance of the existing land loan as well as construction financing." The release went on to say that the project would anticipate completion in June of 2024, however, a construction update blog, Field Condition , showed the facade was still in the works in May this year.
The nine-story building will house 53,000 square feet of office space and 8,000 square feet for retail, on 1 and 3 St. Mark's Place and 25-27 Third Ave. The Parkview Financial loan, which saved the project from foreclosure, came just three years before Brandon's shock death in the Hamptons last week at 43 years old.
Brandon was reportedly rushed to the hospital before his death. The businessman spent time in an intensive care unit in Southampton, The Real Deal reported. Brandon was quietly laid to rest at New Montefiore Cemetery in West Babylon.
No cause of death has been announced. He leaves behind his wife and two young daughters. His socialite wife, Candice , runs the popular lifestyle blog Mama and Tata.
Brandon inherited his company, Real Estate Equity Corporation, or REEC, from his father Michael Miller, who began the company in 1978. The Hamptons natives were married for over a decade. Brandon has been running the business alongside his business partner, Mark Siegel.
Brandon and REEC have faced legal issues in recent years. In 2019, a complaint was filed about Brandon's late father in relation to a condominium project. The complaint alleged his father, Michael Miller, who died in 2016, told his assistant to forge his son's signature on law documents.
The lawsuit was eventually settled. In other court documents reviewed by The U.S.
Sun TD Bank sued Brandon, his mother, and his sister, over a series of alleged fraudulent transfers which the bank claimed prevented it from collecting $2.1 million. According to The Real Deal, the origins of the case date back to missed payments from Miller on a $17.
5 million commercial mortgage loan which his late father had personally guaranteed up to $3.5 million, according to the outlet. He also was sued over $100,000 in alleged unpaid luxury furniture rentals and another $50,000 in boat-related fees just months before his shocking death.
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