One57 Penthouse Sells For $32M

Discounts are dominating at Extell Development’s One57, where recent resales have taken sizable cuts off their past prices.

PH88 closed this week for $31.5 million, according to Zillow. Serhant agent Talia McKinney initially priced the 88th-floor unit at $45 million, before lowering the ask to $34 million.

McKinney declined to comment on her pricing strategy, but said aspirational pricing and the downturn in the market have played a factor in creating discounts for trophy properties.

“We were probably a little high for where we thought that it should trade,” she said. “When we dropped it to $34 [million] we were like, ‘this is still a good price point for One57.’”

The home at 157 West 57th Street spans 6,200 square feet and has five bedrooms and five bathrooms, as well as a private elevator entrance and Central Park views. It traded above its $28 million sale price in 2020, but way down from the $47.8 million got for it in a 2015 sponsor sale.

The unit, which went into contract in August, is the latest disappointing resale at One57.

Five floors down, Unit PH83 appears to have fallen into a similar fate.

The full-floor unit, which last week went into contract, was listed by Douglas Elliman agent Noble Black for $34 million. The unit had previously sold for $45.8 million in a sponsor sale.

Other units at the Billionaire’s Row tower have struggled to provide returns for their owners.

A 58th-floor condo sold in March for $19.3 million, down from the sponsor sale price of $24.6 million. The building’s other 58th-floor unit sold in December 2020 for $16.8 million, less than half its original sale price. Investor Robert Herjavec, known for his appearances on Shark Tank, took a $13 million haircut on his unit in the building.

The building was the first of its kind to come online, but newer, nicer and taller trophy properties have since popped up on Billionaires’ Row: 432 Park Avenue, Central Park Tower and 220 Central Park South, to name a few.

“We were also coming out of the subprime crisis,” Corcoran agent Ryan Kaplan said of One57’s debut. “There was all this pent-up demand for luxury.”

The spate of ultra-luxury developments in the area outpaced demand from the billionaire class, Kaplan said. And buildings like One57, which lack the unique distinction of Central Park frontage, can’t differentiate themselves in the same way a building that’s adjacent to the landmark.

“I don’t think 157 will ever be able to reclaim its record-breaking numbers when there will just be newer [buildings],” Kaplan said. “It doesn’t have anything that makes it a scarce piece of real estate, you need something that’s irreplicable.”