By JOSH BARBANEL
Extell
One57 tower on West 57th Street in a rendering
It may be the most expensive home listing ever in Manhattan: $110 million for a glass-walled penthouse overlooking Central Park on top of what will soon be the borough’s tallest residential building.
The prize for that eye-popping price tag is a six-bedroom apartment covering 10,923 square feet at One57, a tower under construction by Extell Development Co., on West 57th Street opposite Carnegie Hall. The $110 million figure is nearly 12% above an earlier asking price for the unit, according to documents filed with the New York state attorney general.
The richer listing price is one result of a recent deal to sell the 20th-floor penthouse owned by Sanford I. Weill, the former chairman and chief executive and chairman of Citigroup Inc. The Weill apartment—at 15 Central Park West, a few blocks away from One57—went into contract for $88 million, a record.
Extell
One57 tower on West 57th Street
Now some brokers say the Weill sale may give a jolt to an already strong high-end market. Extell is betting that other buyers are willing to pay many millions more than previously thought for a chance to live in the clouds above Central Park.
The One57 tower eventually will rise to more than 1,004 feet, including a curved, glass top covering a cooling tower, when the building opens in 2013. It would be the tallest residential development in New York, though even taller residential buildings have been proposed, but not yet begun.
Sales at the building are off to a fast start, according to brokers. While many buyers expect to negotiate discounts before they sign on the dotted line, One57 so far has held the line on asking prices, brokers said.
Elizabeth Sample, a broker at Sotheby’s International Realty, said the showroom for the building had been flooded with multimillionaire and billionaire buyers. “It is insane in the showroom,” she said. “We are doing two deals there,” she said.
The highest known home sale in the U.S. was the $100 million paid by a Russian billionaire investor in social-media companies, Yuri Milner, earlier this year. He bought a 25,500-square-foot chateau-style mansion in Silicon Valley.
Though there have been higher listing prices for mansions, estates and ranches across the country, Zillow.com said that the highest current single family home listing in its national database is $90 million for a 35-foot-wide mansion at 4 E. 80th St. in Manhattan. A house in Lake Tahoe is now second with a listing price of $75 million, down from $100 million earlier in the year.
The penthouse listed for $110 million at One57 is on the top two floors of what will be a 90-story building. It has a 57-foot-wide, double-height “grand salon” facing Central Park.
The asking price on an even larger condo in the building on the 75th and 76th floors also has been raised, to $105 million. The duplex apartment has an additional two-story-high, 51-foot-wide glass-enclosed “winter garden” with a curved glass roof and optional pool. The unit is listed at 13,554 square feet.
Mr. Weill is in contract to sell his penthouse, plus wrap-around terrace, to the 22-year-old daughter of Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian billionaire, for the full $88 million asking price, according to a person familiar with the sale. The previous record sale was for a $53 million Upper East Side townhouse.
A few weeks ago, at about the time that word of a deal on the Weill apartment began circulating among brokers, Extell submitted a plan amendment raising prices across the board on its apartments in One57.
According to the documents, prices are now up a total of $77 million, or an average of 3.9%, since the One57 condo development plan was first submitted, with the largest increases on the most expensive condos. There are now four full-floor apartments priced at more than $50 million. Seven other lower full-floor units are listed for between $42.5 million and $48.5 million.
These apartments are about the same size as Mr. Weill’s apartment, but are listed for a third to almost half as much. The penthouse at the top of the building is priced at $10,070 a square foot, compared with more than $13,000 a square foot for the Weill apartment.
Extell President Gary Barnett declined to discuss sales at the building, except to say that there was interest “across the board” in the building “from all over the world,” including the U.S. He said that the Weill sale would bring world-wide attention to Manhattan real estate.
“I don’t think one building makes the market, but it is a very good headline number. It has a good psychological effect on the market,” he said. “I like it.”
Wendy Maitland, a managing director at Town Residential, said the building “was an opportunity” for buyers, including investors, despite the hefty price tags, because there was nothing like it on the market at the moment. “It is a property that hasn’t been seen on the gold coast of Central Park since 15 Central Park West sold out,” she said.
Edward Mermelstein, a lawyer who works with wealthy clients from Russia and the former Soviet Union, said that many buyers were from Russia and China, and the idea of living atop the tallest Manhattan building had great appeal to them.
“They have deals from $6 million to more than $40 million,” he said.