Buddhist Org. Wants to Sell Vacant Building in Hell’s Kitchen for $4.1M
The building has never been converted into use during the decade-plus that Buddha’s Light Cultural Center, a representative of a Taiwanese-based offshoot of the religion, has owned it.
| 09 Jun 2026 | 03:20
A Buddhist organization that owns a vacant building on W. 44th St. wants to sell it off, a court petition notes, for around $4 million dollars. (
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The building has ties to the International Buddhist Progress Society in Queens, which itself represents the Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhist organization known as Fo Guang Shan. (
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Long-delayed plans to transform a vacant building at 344 W. 44th St. into a Buddhist temple could be abandoned imminently, after the Buddhist nonprofit that owns the property petitioned the for permission to sell it.
The court filing, which was first reported by Crain’s New York Business, was submitted by the Buddha’s Light Cultural Center. The Taiwanese religious organization is linked to a temple in Flushing, Queens called the International Buddhist Progress Society (IBPS). A judge has yet to rule on the dissolution.
Buddha’s Light now hopes to pass the property off to the proprietor of the clothing manufacturer Studio Nazar, Joseph Nazar, for $4.1 million. The building reportedly hasn’t been in use for over a decade. Buddha’s Light bought the building for $9.1 million in 2015, meaning that they would take a “steep loss,” as Crain’s pointed out.
The seller in that transaction was Tony Acosta, the founder of a New York-based musical string-maker outfit known as Luthier Music, which also sold classical and flamenco guitars. Acosta passed away in 2019, with an obit in Classical Guitar Magazine noting that the Colombia-born musician also once played semi-pro soccer and worked as a tariff analyst for Lufthansa, the German airline.
In their recent court filing, Buddha’s Light notes that its bylaws demand that it (emphasis in filing) “directly and indirectly support the beliefs and practices of the Buddhist religion as promulgated by the Committee of the Religious Affairs of FO GUANG SHAN, in all states of the United of America and in all countries of the world by supporting International Buddhist Progress Society, a New York religious corporation.”
Fo Guang Shan—which is Taiwanese for “Buddha’s Light Mountain”—is an international Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhist organization and monastic order, which is represented in the United States and Canada by IBPS. The order was founded in 1967 by Hsing Yung, a proponent of the modernist Humanistic Buddhism philosophy, in the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung.
As attorneys for Buddha’s Light note in the petition, the $4.1 million sale price would technically not cover an unpaid $9.3 million loan provided to them by the IBPS in 2015, in order to purchase the building. The petition was signed by Sel See Quah, the Secretary of Buddha’s Light, and undersigned by a notary public.
As a resolution from a recent IBPS board meeting clarifies, the religious organization has since agreed to modify the terms of repayment in a more lenient fashion; they will now accept “the amount of the remaining net proceeds determined from the sale of Property after all required closing costs.”
This modification of repayment terms never seemed to be in doubt, however, given the fact that the current board of IBPS is made up of five of the six people serving on the board of Buddha’s Light.
Nazar, the man now seeking to purchase 344 W. 41st St., previously acquired a seven-story building at 124 W. 36th St. for $10 million back in 2024. His business sells women’s, children’s and infant’s clothing on a wholesale basis.