Jeff Blau asks $43M for 1040 Fifth Avenue co-op

From left: 1040 Fifth Avenue, Jeff Blau
From left: 1040 Fifth Avenue, Jeff Blau

Related Companies CEO Jeff Blau has put his Rosario Candela-designed 1040 Fifth Avenue co-op on the market for $43 million, tying for the record asking price for units in the building.

Sharon Baum and Deborah Grubman of the Corcoran Group have the listing. The 10-room unit, one of the original “Roaring Twenties” luxury apartments, takes up the 14th floor of the Upper East Side mid-rise between East 85th and East 86th streets.

Looking for a roomier place for his wife and two children, Blau purchased the 4,700-square-foot pad for $21.4 million in 2008, according to StreetEasy.

He left his customized 3,160-square-foot penthouse at the Chatham, a Related-developed condominium building at 181 East 65th Street. “I loved living in that building,” he told The Real Deal in July 2011, referring to the Chatham. “It’s sad to move out, but as two kids come along and you need more space, we opted to make the move.”

He bought the 1040 Fifth unit from Scott Bommer, the founder of SAB Capital Management, for 14 percent less than the asking price. (That was no skin off Bommer’s back though –– he and his wife, Donya, bought it for $12.4 million in 2005.)

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Aside from its three bedrooms and three-and-a-half baths, the apartment features new hardwood flooring, a private elevator, a wood-burning fireplace and a terrace. The space underwent three years of renovation by architectural design firm Shelton, Mindel & Associates; listing photographs of the apartment before and after the changes show the drop ceiling has been removed to open the space.

“It was designed so you always feel the full dimensions of the exposure, with no obstruction of light coming in,” designer Lee Mindel said in a phone interview.

The unit’s living and dining rooms offer views of the West Side skyline and Central Park’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, named after the late first lady who owned the 15th floor at the building for 30 years. David Koch bought Jackie O’s apartment in 1994 after her death and later sold it to Highbridge Capital Management CEO Glenn Dubin and his wife Eva for $30 million. The Dubins’ purchase is the highest sale on record at 1040 Fifth, according to StreetEasy.

A spokesperson for Related declined to comment, while a spokesperson for Corcoran was not immediately available.