A-Rod’s $10M co-op deal approved after “tantrum”

Former baseball star was initially denied by the co-op board: report

Alex Rodriguez - businessman, philanthropist and former professional baseball player - in front of the Beresford (Getty Images, Wikipedia/David Shankbone, Illustration by Steven Dilakian for The Real Deal)
Alex Rodriguez - businessman, philanthropist and former professional baseball player - in front of the Beresford (Getty Images, Wikipedia/David Shankbone, Illustration by Steven Dilakian for The Real Deal)

There’s no crying in baseball, but it took a tantrum or two for ex-Yankee Alex Rodriguez to score a $9.9 million apartment at the Beresford.

After initially striking out with the co-op board at the prestigious Central Park West building, the third-baseman turned businessman “made a big fuss about it” until he received approval to buy a three-bedroom unit there, the New York Post reported.

“He almost didn’t get accepted and begged the board to accept him,” a person familiar with the transaction told the publication. “He had a tantrum and then they said yes.”

The white-glove, pre-war co-op is a place where celebrity status is precisely what could get a prospective resident denied. The board didn’t want someone with Rodriguez’s “reputation” living in the building, the person said.

It also didn’t help that Rodriguez wanted to live on the second floor, hardly the building’s most private option. In 2019, a photographer famously snapped a photo of the slugger sitting on the toilet through the window of the 432 Park Avenue condo he shared with then-fianceé Jennifer Lopez.

Still, living in the building designed by famed architect Emery Roth was worth taking another swing. Rodriguez purchased the unit from real estate developer Jordan Vogel, who bought it in 2018 for $6.75 million, property records show.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

A-Rod’s publicist, Ron Berkowitz, denied any controversy surrounding the deal, telling the Post that his client was approved days after his interview with the co-op board.

Vogel and representatives at the Beresford did not immediately respond to The Real Deal’s requests for comment.

The 3,600-square-foot unit also has five and a half bathrooms, a dressing room, a wood burning fireplace and 16 windows overlooking West 82nd Street and Central Park. Brown Harris Stevens’ Roberto Cabrera had the listing.

Read more

[NYP] — Cordilia James