432 Park Avenue condo in $70M contract for in-house buyers

Couple looking to close on city’s priciest residential sale of year

From left: Yossi Benchetrit and Gaëlle Pereira Benchetrit in front of 432 Park Avenue (Altice USA, Facebook/Gaëlle Pereira Benchetrit, 432 Park Avenue, iStock)
From left: Yossi Benchetrit and Gaëlle Pereira Benchetrit in front of 432 Park Avenue (Altice USA, Facebook/Gaëlle Pereira Benchetrit, 432 Park Avenue, iStock)

The buyers in contract for one of the biggest residential sale of the year know what they’re getting themselves into at 432 Park Avenue, alleged plumbing and mechanical issues and all.

The buyers behind the 82nd-floor deal are Yossi Benchetrit and Gaëlle Pereira Benchetrit, the Wall Street Journal reported. Yossi is the chief procurement and programming officer at Altice USA, while Gaëlle founded cosmetic clinic Clinique des Champs Elysées New York.

The couple is in contract to spend $70 million, or about $8,750 per square foot, for the additional 8,000-square-foot unit in Harry Macklowe and CIM Group’s supertall. The Journal reported the purchase comes after they picked up a 4,500-square-foot unit on a lower floor of the building for $23.9 million, or around $5,304 per square foot.

Limited partnership Blessings Investments is the seller of the unit, which has yet to close. It purchased the unit and staff suites for roughly $66.5 million in 2016. The condo owner, reportedly linked to British pharmaceutical magnate Meeta Patel, put the unit on the market in August 2020 for $90 million before dropping the price to $79 million last April.

Douglas Elliman’s Ryan Stenta and the Corcoran Group’s Carrie Chiang are representing Blessings Investments, while Compass’ Jason Haber is representing the buyers.

Read more

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

The five-bedroom unit has 360-degree views of the city, a media room and a great room with 10-by-10-foot windows; the couple’s lower unit has four bedrooms.

The deal comes in the wake of significant allegations from residents, including flooding, broken elevators and noise from the building’s sway. The building’s condo board in September brought a lawsuit against co-developers CIM and Macklowe with damage claims based on more than 1,500 construction and design problems found by a team hired for inspection.

CIM pushed back in documents filed in New York Supreme Court in December, calling the lawsuit “ill-advised” and dismissing it as a “publicity campaign.” The developer said the building was “without a doubt, safe” and called its “amenities, features, fixtures and finishings … the pinnacle of luxury.”

The alleged issues don’t seem to be hampering buyers, according to agents who work with buyers and sellers in the building.

“So far, people buying [or] paying very high rents don’t give a damn,” one agent told The Real Deal in December. “They want to be in that building.”

[WSJ] — Holden Walter-Warner