A prolific Kips Bay developer has added four additional buildings in the Manhattan neighborhood to his portfolio. The entity Nere Rose Hill Management, which appears to be affiliated with Bentley Zhao's development and construction management firm New Empire Corp., paid a combined $37.9 million for the quartet of mixed-use properties at 247 E. 31st St. and 563, 567 and 569 Second Ave., records show. Zhao, who used a similarly named entity in 2021 to acquire a nearby site for $14.8 million,...

UPDATED 7:10 p.m., January 6, 2026: Developer New Empire Corp. paid $38 million to the Marchi family through the entity Marchi Realty Corp. for a development site at the corner of Second Avenue and 31st Street in Kips Bay, Manhattan, in three transactions. To finance the purchase, New Empire Corp. borrowed $24.65 million from Emerald Creek Capital. The properties were marketed for sale as a development site in late 2022, according to a post on Traded NY at that time. In the largest of the...

Four mixed-use properties in the Kips Bay section of Manhattan — 247 East 31st Street , and 563, 567 and 569 Second Avenue  — were sold by Dean Marchi , through several business entities, to Bentley Zhao’s New Empire Corporation , also through an affiliated company. The four properties sold for a total of $38 million . Zhao did not appear to sign the deeds, but, according to Crain’s New York Business , which was first to report the sale, Zhao is “listed as the signatory for a $24.6 million...