From left: 15 CPW, Time Warner Center and the Plaza

Not only is the high-end of the Manhattan housing market healthy, but in some respects it’s performing just as well as it did during the market’s peak, according to the Wall Street Journal. Seven deals worth more than $30 million have been recorded this year, not including Sanford Weill’s recent $88 million sale, the most since 2008 and the third-most ever. Further, the $6,000 per square foot price point that was noteworthy even in 2008 has become somewhat more commonplace, the Journal said.

The astronomical prices are buoyed by a shortage of ultra-luxury apartments, according to brokers, as the world’s wealthiest people are moving assets right now. [more]

Another 15 Central Park West apartment has just hit the market for a massive $35 million, the New York Observer reported, and could break a new city record. The three-bedroom, three-bathroom unit, which is just 3,368 square feet, is asking $10,391 per square foot, which would set a record as the first city unit to break five-figures on a per square foot basis.

The price may be ambitious, the Observer noted, given the fact that a comparable unit on the 31st floor, 16 stories higher than unit 15B, just sold for just $24 million, or $7,563 per square foot. But listing broker Dolly Lenz, vice chairman of Prudential Douglas Elliman, may be banking on the “Weill factor” — momentum generated by the successful sale of financier Sanford Weill’s 15 Central Park West apartment for $88 million earlier this month. [more]

From left: Former Citigroup Chairman and CEO Sanford Weill and 15 CPWFormer Citigroup Chairman and CEO Sanford Weill is putting his 15 Central Park West penthouse on the market for $88 million, more than twice what he paid for it in 2007, the Wall Street Journal reported. Weill and his wife plan to donate the proceeds to charity and downsize to a sixth-floor apartment they own in the building.

The Weills paid $43.7 million for the 6,744-square-foot apartment in 2007, or more than $6,400 per square foot, then a record for price paid per square foot. The current price per square foot record holder is another penthouse in the building, which sold for $40 million, or $9,940 per square foot, in December 2010, according to the Journal. [more]

The pool at 15 Central Park West

From the July issue: One of the selling points emphasized by brokers at the Edge condominium in Williamsburg is the major weekend scene at the pool, with lots of sunbathing, picnicking and socializing. At 20 Pine’s pool in the Financial District, neighbors regularly practice yoga and host parties.

But there will be no pool parties at 15 Central Park West this summer. Even as the weather heats up, the atmosphere at the über-exclusive condominium remains subdued, residents say, and the pool area is often deserted.

The Robert A.M. Stern-designed building has become the condominium of choice for hotshot celebrities like Denzel Washington and Sting, and finance bigwigs such as Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and Citigroup Chairman Emeritus Sanford Weill. [more]

Weill Cornell Medical College has broken ground on a new $650 million Upper East Side research facility that will double Cornell University’s existing space for medical research, the Wall Street Journal reported. The university raised over $1 billion to fund the 480,000-square-foot, Polshek Partnership Architects-designed project, which will house the new Weill Cornell Cancer Center and the school’s global health and infectious disease research programs on the site of three demolished Cornell-owned buildings on East 69th Street between First and York avenues. Completion is slated for 2013. [WSJ]

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Brian Roberts, the Philadelphia-based Comcast CEO who struck a deal in December to take over NBC Universal from the General Electric Company, is in contract on a New York City pied-a-terre at 15 Central Park West, broker sources told the Wall Street Journal. Roberts had been eyeing two-bedroom units in the building with Central Park views that ranged in price from $7 million to $12.9 million, but it was unclear which one he ultimately settled upon. [more]