The recent drama surrounding New York’s iconic Flatiron Building finally appears to have a clear ending.

GFP Real Estate Chairman Jeff Gural, who represents the triangular-shaped New York landmark’s majority owners, won a closely watched second public auction Tuesday with a $161 million bid.

Competing against four other bidders and after two one-minute recesses, Gural eventually won the highest bid, less than half an hour after the auction officially started, to the cheers of about 200 people gathered on the portico at the front entrance of the New York County Courthouse in lower Manhattan.

“This is a big relief to finally own the whole building,” Gural said after the auction to some two dozen reporters, adding he “overpaid, but not by much. The only thing I wanted to do was make it clear [to other bidders] that I wasn't going to stop. It’s a good day for us,” he said.

The second public auction of the 255,000-square-foot building comes after Jacob Garlick, managing partner of Reston, Virginia-based Abraham Trust, came out as the surprise outside winner with a $190 million bid in the first auction in March. But Garlick ended up failing to make a 10% down payment within 48 hours of the sale, and the building’s majority owners, represented also by Gural in the first auction, declined to exercise the second highest-bid option to buy the property at $189.5 million.

GFP, with its partners, own a 75% stake in the building, at 175 Fifth Ave. at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway, in interests that were acquired since 1997, according to court documents. Nathan Silverstein owns the remaining 25% after he inherited the stake from his father.

These auctions were scheduled after lawsuits arising from various disputes between the majority owners and Silverstein over renovations, leasing plans, and even physically dividing up the building. A New York state Supreme Court judge earlier this year approved the public auction sale.

“It’s a good deal,” Gural told CoStar News, referring to the about $30 million less in final bid price compared to that in the first auction. He said he didn’t know what to expect and wasn’t confident he would win the bid after the experience last time. His assistant who was there with him live streamed the event to people back in the office, he said.

As to the future of the building, Gural repeated the building still requires some $100 million of basic upgrades. The work that’s required at the building includes setting up the heating and air-conditioning system and knocking out the existing sole historic stairway to build two new ones, CoStar News learned from a recent tour of the building.

But what this building represents to Gural, his legacy, and its place in New York isn’t lost on him.

“It's an amazing building,” he said, adding he’s been involved with the building for the past 30 to 40 years. “There are three buildings in New York that are iconic — the Empire State Building, Chrysler [Building], and the Flatiron. ... I'm not going to do anything to screw up my legacy. It's just a question of figuring out what to do. It's not easy to borrow money these days. It's a hectic time.”

Gural recounted a story of him driving from Ohio to Kentucky and stopping by a New York-themed restaurant that had pictures of the three buildings he mentioned on the wall. When the restaurant staff found out he was the owner of the Flatiron, the kitchen staff came out to meet him, he said.

Even though GFP owns some 40 other buildings, the Flatiron has always had a special place for him. Gural has pictures of the 22-story building in his apartment and the office as well as a Lego model of the famed property, which opened in 1902 and has been featured on postcards, in movies such as “Spider-Man” and “Godzilla,” and is a must-see for many tourists.

At a time when New York’s office vacancies have reached record highs while the residential market continues to see record high rental prices or brisk sales, the plan for the building could involve turning all or half of it into residential use with the other half left for office, Gural said, adding a special permit would be required to turn the traditional office building into other uses. Another option could be turning the building into a hotel, he said.

“I know that there are enough residential tenants that would want an apartment in the Flatiron,” he said. “There's probably enough commercial tenants that would want an office there [also]. But residential is easier. … It's just unfortunate that we need special permits. It takes time. Everybody talks about the city accelerating converting office buildings to apartments. And here we are ready to go. It requires us to get a special permit, which I'm sure we'll get. But it is time consuming.”

The building was designated a landmark by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1966, saying the building evokes “a special character and a poetic quality.” The building has sat vacant since Macmillan Publishers, which had occupied the entire tower, moved out in 2019 in its relocation downtown.

At the auction, excitement was palpable in the air, especially for some.

“I’m so happy,” said Sunny Atis, the building’s superintendent who’s worked at the property for 35 years and showed up to witness the event. “I’m ecstatic. It’s been a ride. But we finally got to the end of the ride.”

Eli Lever, principal of Brooklyn-based developer 21B and one of the bidders before stopping at a $100 million offer, said he is looking forward to seeing what the building will turn out to be.

“Flatiron is the most iconic building in New York,” Lever said in an interview. “It has a huge potential. There’s nothing like it. It needs a lot of work. … It’s just a little expensive for us.”