Pre-war, but make it new.
For $21 million, a full-floor penthouse at 200 Amsterdam Avenue has landed a buyer who also considered a pre-war co-op on Central Park West.
Fetching the highest price yet at the Upper West Side condominium, the all-cash deal fits a pattern of discounts emerging at new luxury offerings, say industry observers, after sales slowed to a trickle following the pandemic.
“The luxury market is strengthening,” said Stephen Kliegerman of Brown Harris Stevens Development Marketing, which worked on the building with developers SJP Properties and Japan’s Mitsui Fudosan. “Prices have come down.”
The 4,670-square foot unit on the 44th floor had asked $23.5 million, meaning the buyer, a couple, got more than a 10 percent discount. And no renovation budget, to boot.
“After seeing literally everything on the market, one thing they didn’t want to do was work,” said Jill Sloane, who represented the buyer for Brown Harris Stevens. The couple, who paid about $4,500 per square foot, considered the Beresford as their plan B.
At 200 Amsterdam, a full-floor unit sold for nearly $5,000 per square foot last May.
The building’s gradual stepbacks and Art Deco crown, designed by Elkus Manfredi, mimic the pre-war architecture of Emory Roth. But at 52 stories, it towers over the neighborhood, offering views in all directions and a 75-foot saltwater pool.
The height of the building became the subject of a lawsuit that paused sales until appeals courts sided with the city and the developer in 2021, overruling a judge who ordered SJP to tear down the top 20 stories.
With all that behind it, the building has sold 66 percent of its inventory, generating $530 million of an expected $950 million sellout, according to Marketproof. Its mix of units includes mostly three-bedrooms, and nearly as many four-bedroom units as two-bedrooms — a rarity which has helped bolster prices, Kliegerman said.
For buyers with beaucoup bucks to spend on an apartment, Kliegerman pointed to 200 Amsterdam and Extell’s 60 West 66th Street as limited new supply. “A lot of inventory is locked up on 57th Street,” he said, referring to Billionaires’ Row, “and not everyone wants to live on 57th Street.”