400 Fifth offers top floor penthouse as duplex with $33M ask

The developers of 400 Fifth Avenue are now offering the penthouse space in the hotel/condominium project as a duplex with an asking price of $33 million, listing agent Gail Sankarsingh told The Real Deal.

The three-bedroom penthouse would occupy the 60th and part of the 59th floor of the 60-story tower, on Fifth Avenue between 36th and 37th streets. The sponsor, Italian firm Bizzi & Partners, would need around three months to reconfigure the space as a duplex for a new owner, Gail Sankarsingh said.

Sankarsingh told TRD that she and Andrew Anderson, both of Douglas Elliman, are exclusively marketing the residential portion of the development, which will not change ownership, despite the sale, last October, of the hotel portion by Bizzi to Great Eagle Group for $229 million. Elliman took over leasing for the 175 units a year ago after flagging sales under the internal sales team.

Residential sales launched in November 2010; the hotel will opened earlier that same month.

The 60th-floor penthouse had been on the market for more than a year with an asking price of $32 million. Now two of the original three penthouses would be combined, and for an asking price only $1 million more than the top floor was asking. If a buyer opts to make the duplex, the remaining penthouse on the 59th floor would go for about $15 million, Sankarsingh said.

She said the team had chosen to offer the duplex option because it would create a unique opportunity for a buyer who could occupy two floors of floor-to-ceiling glass with what she said were unprecedented skyline views.