At a glance
Firm: Elad Properties (also styled El-Ad; the U.S. arm of the El-Ad Group) Owner: Israeli businessman Yitzhak (Isaac) Tshuva, who controls the privately held El-Ad Group U.S. leadership: Miki Naftali led Elad's New York operation during its 2000s peak (through 2011); Udi (Ehud) Erez led the firm afterward Founded / active in New York: Late 1990s onward Headquarters: New York, NY Focus: Conversion and adaptive-reuse condominium development — turning hotels, historic loft and commercial buildings, and landmark structures into for-sale housing, most visibly the Plaza Hotel Frequent design partners: Swanke Hayden Connell; CetraRuddy Portfolio scale: A concentrated Manhattan book anchored by the Plaza conversion and a set of downtown and Midtown boutique condominiums Signature reputation: The developer that converted the Plaza Hotel to luxury residences — a landmark-conversion specialist whose record includes both trophy successes and documented buyer and quality friction Source: The Roebling Team at Compass — verified against public records, court filings, and published reporting. July 2026.
Who Elad Properties is
Elad Properties is the U.S. real estate arm of the El-Ad Group, the privately held company controlled by Israeli businessman Yitzhak (Isaac) Tshuva, who also controls the Israeli conglomerate Delek Group. (El-Ad and Delek are separate entities within Tshuva's portfolio — El-Ad is his privately owned real estate arm, not a Delek subsidiary.) The New York operation rose to prominence in the 2000s, when it was led by Miki Naftali, who built and ran Elad's U.S. business and drove its signature project, the acquisition and conversion of the Plaza Hotel.
That connection is the source of a common confusion worth clearing up. Miki Naftali ran Elad's U.S. arm; he did not own it, and Elad Properties and Naftali Group are two different firms. Naftali left Elad in 2011 to found his own eponymous company. Buildings from Elad's 2000s era — including the Plaza and the Chelsea condominium below — sometimes appear in Naftali's personal career history because he led them while he was Elad's CEO, but the developer of record on those buildings was Elad Properties, and this profile covers Elad's own identity and projects. After Naftali's departure, Elad's New York operation was led by Udi Erez.
For a buyer, the defining trait is conversion. Elad's reputation was built not on ground-up towers but on taking existing buildings — a grand hotel, cast-iron and limestone landmarks, an old telephone exchange — and converting them into condominiums. That specialty produced some of the era's most talked-about addresses, and, as noted below, some of its most public friction.
What they build
Elad's signature is the conversion and adaptive-reuse luxury condominium. Rather than assembling land for new construction, the firm has repeatedly acquired significant existing buildings — hotels, historic commercial and loft structures, and landmarked properties — and reworked them into for-sale housing, often adding rooftop floors and restoring protected facades. The house approach pairs a recognizable, historically resonant building with a modern residential program and a full-service amenity package.
The design roster reflects that focus on existing fabric: Swanke Hayden Connell on the Chelsea Campiello buildings and CetraRuddy on the O'Neill Building conversion, among the firms Elad has engaged to translate older structures into contemporary condominiums.
Buildings by Elad Properties
Elad projects already profiled on this site:
- 224 West 18th Street (The Campiello Collection) — a boutique Chelsea condominium Elad built in the early 2000s on former parking lots, one of two sibling "Campiello" buildings sharing landscaped interior gardens (the other at 151 West 17th Street); developed by Elad during Miki Naftali's tenure
- 426 West 58th Street — Elad's adaptive-reuse conversion of a 1910 former New York Telephone Company exchange near Columbus Circle, roughly 16 loft-scaled residences topped with a contemporary rooftop addition
Other notable Elad work includes the Plaza Hotel conversion (see below); the O'Neill Building at 655 Sixth Avenue, the 1880s cast-iron O'Neill Dry Goods store in the Ladies' Mile Historic District that Elad converted to condominiums with a restored dome and rooftop addition; and The Grand Madison at 225 Fifth Avenue, a Madison Square Park conversion of the former Brunswick Building / New York Gift Building into condominiums. (A note on naming: the "O'Neill Building" at 655 Sixth Avenue is a distinct Elad project from the Campiello condominium at 224 West 18th Street — the two are sometimes conflated, but they are separate buildings.)
Track record and market performance
Elad's record is anchored by the Plaza Hotel — one of the most consequential conversions in the city's history. Elad acquired the Plaza in 2004 for roughly $675 million and, after a renovation reported in the hundreds of millions, reopened it in 2008 as a mixed-use landmark combining private residential condominiums, hotel-condominium units, hotel rooms, and a below-grade retail collection. (Reported unit counts vary across sources.) Converting the Plaza turned an iconic hotel into some of the most expensive residences of its era and remains the defining line on Elad's résumé.
Below that headline, Elad's Manhattan book is a set of conversion-era condominiums — the Campiello buildings in Chelsea, the O'Neill Building on Ladies' Mile, 426 West 58th near Columbus Circle, and The Grand Madison on Madison Square Park — that placed the firm among the more active adaptive-reuse developers of the 2000s. These are boutique-to-mid-scale buildings that trade in the ordinary resale market today.
Reputation and what a buyer should know
Elad's reputation carries real, documented friction, and it is worth separating the commercial disputes from the building-quality complaints, because both appear in the record.
At the Campiello / 224 West 18th Street, the issues are quality-adjacent and the more substantive knock. Published reporting from the building's early years describes residents publicly criticizing Elad over construction complaints, unresolved repairs, slow responsiveness, and money owed to the condominium — with owners consulting lawyers and construction experts. An Elad executive acknowledged in that reporting that the firm could be slow to respond but said it ultimately made repairs. For a buyer, that is the kind of history to probe at the building level: read the board minutes and the building's repair and reserve history, and confirm how any early defect and punch-list matters were resolved.
At the Plaza, the disputes were largely commercial and legal, not building-defect findings. The conversion drew a well-publicized labor and political fight with the hotel workers' union over the loss of hotel jobs (later reconciled); a buyer-fraud lawsuit from purchasers of two penthouses who alleged undisclosed changes to plans and refused to close, with Elad moving to retain deposits; a subcontractor mechanic's lien over disputed renovation payments; and litigation Elad itself brought against a restaurant tenant. These are commercial, contractual, and political disputes — the ordinary friction of an enormous landmark conversion — rather than proven structural or defect problems in the delivered residences, and they should not be read as such.
426 West 58th Street surfaced no defect or litigation issues in the public record reviewed here, though absence of reported problems is not a substitute for building-level diligence.
For a buyer, standard conversion-era diligence applies with a slightly sharper lens on the two points above: read the offering plan and any amendments (conversions carry more offering-plan history than ground-up buildings), confirm lien and title status, and read the condominium's minutes and financials closely for any legacy of early construction or repair disputes. Elad's completed buildings trade normally today, but the sponsor's history rewards a careful read of each specific building's record.
The Roebling Team on Elad buildings
We publish developer profiles because a buyer choosing a new-construction or recently-converted condominium is, in part, betting on the developer — its quality, its staying power, and its record when things go wrong. The Roebling Team at Compass tracks the sponsors behind Manhattan's luxury inventory building by building, and we bring that context to every new-development transaction: what the developer has built, how those buildings have held value, and what to verify before you sign.
If you're evaluating an Elad building — or weighing it against another sponsor's product — a 30-minute consultation is the right starting point.
Corey Cohen, Principal · The Roebling Team at Compass 646.939.7375 · c.cohen@compass.com
This developer profile reflects publicly available information — including NYC public records, court filings, and published reporting — and The Roebling Team's transaction experience. It is provided for research purposes and is not legal advice; nothing here alleges wrongdoing or building defects beyond what the cited public record supports. The Roebling Team at Compass does not represent Elad Properties. © 2026 The Roebling Team at Compass.