Frank Sciame Jr. lists Midtown co-op for $4 million

Frank Sciame Jr. loves the Ritz Tower, but it’s time for him to part with his fourth-floor pied-à-terre.

The construction bigwig listed his two-bedroom co-op for $4 million on Thursday, according to a new listing and property records. Sciame, who lives on Long Island with his family, says he decided to sell the apartment because he barely stayed in it.

“I love the building. I’ve been in the building for 25 years. I just never used the apartment. Ever since we built the Mark Hotel, we stay there,” Sciame told The Real Deal, referring to the hotel on Madison and 77th Street, where his company Sciame Construction completed renovations in 2009.

But he’s not completely abandoning the building. Sciame is the president of the co-op board and has another apartment on the fifth floor that he intends to keep.

Sciame, who founded his construction firm in 1975, sat down with TRD in January for the magazine’s monthly “Closing” interview. At the time, he said his company had $1.5 billion worth of projects underway. The company has completed more than 1,000 projects in New York.

His fourth-floor apartment is a combination of three units and spans 1,900 square feet. The home has floated on and off the market for the past two years, listing for $7.2 million in October 2014. Since then, the listing has taken various price chops, ultimately plunging to $4 million. Douglas Elliman’s [TRDataCustom] Michael Lorber, Alexander Boriskin, Ian Slater and Oren Alexander have the latest listing.

When asked about the various price cuts to the listing, Sciame said the brokers initially told him “to shoot for the moon.” But he recognized that the market called for a different price tag. This time, though, he said he expects “a bidding war,” adding, “If it doesn’t sell at full price, I’m just going to keep it.”