A Texas bigwig worth a reported $3 billion has scored himself a $28 million New York City pad.
Ed Bass, the Fort Worth billionaire best known for bankrolling a “Biosphere” experiment that sought to recreate the earth in space, shelled out for two adjacent apartments at the condo conversion at 212 Fifth Avenue, according to a source close to the deal.
Together, the two apartments on the 19th floor total more than 7,100 square feet and have seven bedrooms. He paid just under $4,000 per square foot for the units.
A spokesperson for Bass was not immediately available for comment. The developers of the building — Madison Equities, Building Land & Technology and Thor Equities — declined to comment.
The new development team at Town Residential represented the developers in the deal while Ben Hayden, formerly of Stribling & Associates, represented the buyer. Both Hayden and a spokesperson for Town declined to comment.
Bass shares an oil and gas fortune with his siblings, according to Forbes. In the 1980s, he funded a ill-fated project designed to create a sealed, self-sustaining world that could survive outside of planet Earth. It was seen as a bid to find a way to settle Mars.
The Fifth Avenue building, currently in construction near Madison Square Park, will have 48 units. The penthouse is asking a staggering $68.5 million, or $6,850 per square foot.
The Real Deal reported earlier this month that Charles Kushner, father of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, bought three units at the building for $12.5 million.