By CRAIG KARMIN And JOSH BARBANEL

The sale of a 41st-floor penthouse at 15 Central Park West has closed for $40 million, setting a record for the highest price per square foot for a Manhattan apartment.

But the sale was only the fourth Manhattan apartment or townhouse fetching more than $30 million so far this year, showing the slow healing of the Manhattan trophy market since it was hard hit during the recession.

Sales above $10 million so far are running 15% above last year’s pace, according to review of sales records, but deals are lagging among the highest priced trophy properties—those selling for more than $30 million. Last year, there were six sales for $30 million or more, including two at 15 Central Park West. In 2008, when the market was still roaring there were 21 trophy sales in the same range, including six for more than $45 million.

This year, the highest-price deal so far was the sale of 1009 Fifth Ave., a 27-foot-wide mansion on the corner of East 82nd Street that was purchased by Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire, for $44 million.

Paula Del Nunzio, the broker at Brown Harris Stevens who listed the property, said that market was rising, slowly but steadily.

But she said that the sale of the mansion was something of a “lightning strike” since Mr. Slim ended up paying 10% more than the same property sold for in 2006.

The penthouse at 15 Central Park West closed on Monday, a broker said. The seller was William Lie Zeckendorf, who developed the condominium facing Central Park at West 62nd Street, with his brother, Arthur.

The identity of the buyer wasn’t publicly disclosed.

In absolute dollar terms, the penthouse deal, which was first reported last month, was the second highest-priced home sale in New York this year, after 1009 Fifth Ave.

But on a price-per-square-foot basis—the industry metric typically used to compare prices on apartments of different sizes—this latest transaction soars above all others.

The 41st-floor penthouse is 4,024 square feet, according to the condominium declaration. The sale price works out to $9,940 square feet, not counting a 210-square-foot terrace.

That exceeds the previous record holder: a 38th-floor apartment also at 15 Central Park West that sold in 2008 for $27 million, or about $9,486 on a price-per-square-foot basis, according to figures from Miller Samuel Inc. Mr. Zeckendorf paid $10.7 million for his apartment

The third highest sale recorded so far in 2010 was the $33.2 million foreclosure sale of a penthouse at Trump International Hotel and Tower on Columbus Circle that had been owned by Vittorio Cecchi Gori, an Italian movie mogul. He produced “Il Postino” and “Life Is Beautiful,” among numerous other films.

That was followed in this year’s rankings by the $31.5 million sale of an unfinished penthouse at Superior Ink, a condo on West 12th Street in the West Village.

It was sold by Leslie Alexander, the owner of the Houston Rockets basketball team and was the highest price paid for a downtown condominium.

Jonathan Miller, an appraiser and president of Miller Samuel, said that recent sales show that the huge run-up in prices in the luxury market in 2007 and 2008 was “an anomaly.”

Prices for properties costing $10 million or more are now returning to levels seen in earlier years, adjusted for inflation, he said.

Write to Craig Karmin at craig.karmin@wsj.com and Josh Barbanel at josh.barbanel@wsj.com