Ben Shaoul is a New York City-based real estate owner and developer.[1][2][3] He is the president of Magnum Real Estate Group, a residential real estate development and management company headquartered in New York City.[2][4] Shaoul is best known as a prominent developer in the Manhattan borough of New York City.[1][2]
Shaoul was born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York City to an Iranian Jewish family,[1] the son of Abraham and Minoo Shaoul.[5] His father ran an antiques business.[1] He grew up in Great Neck, New York.[1][2] He briefly attended community college but dropped out at the age of 19.[1]
After he left school, he interned for a summer with a New York-based developer run by the Ohebshalom family, (also of Persian Jewish heritage).[1][2] He oversaw the renovation of his father's property and later took out a mortgage on the building.[1][2] In 1998, he and his parents co-founded Magnum Real Estate Group.[6] In 1999, Shaoul used the proceeds from that mortgage to buy his first property, which was located on Mott Street in Nolita.[1][7] Shaoul purchases buildings that have not been renovated for a long time and renovates them, and then increases the rent.[1] He primarily focuses on the East Village has added luxury apartments on top existing buildings.[1]
In 2013, Shaoul and Magnum Real Estate Group opened Bloom62, a luxury apartment building located in the East Village.[4][8] Shaoul and Westbrook Partners sold a jointly-held investment portfolio of 17 properties for $130 million to Jared Kushner in February of that year.[9] He later partnered with SL Green Realty to acquire properties in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.[10] Shaoul also began developing a dormitory for the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan[8][9][11] and ventured into Tribeca where he purchased the top 22 floors of the 32 story art-deco Verizon Building for conversion to condominiums.[12][13] In July 2014, he purchased the 199-unit Post Toscana on the Upper East Side and the 138-unit Post Luminaria in Kips Bay for $270 million to convert into condominiums. Both buildings have soon-to-expire tax abatements thereafter exempting them from rent stabilization rules.[14]
Shaoul has acquired and sold over 100 properties to include everything from the renovation of thousands of apartments to a $500M condominium conversion.[15][16]
Shaoul is married to Megan Walsh Shaoul.[2] They have three children: Henry, Piper, and Mayer.[2] He has been criticized for contributing to the decline of rent-regulated apartments in the East Village.[1] He was labeled "Sledgehammer Shaoul" after confronting tenants in a building he purchased and being photographed with construction workers holding sledgehammers and crowbars.[1] In 2014, he was sued by his parents for using the proceeds from the refinancing of co-owned assets to fund his development projects.[5][6] The dispute was later resolved.[17]