Harry Macklowe’s 432 Park Condos Nab $53M Contract

Two 432 Park Avenue condos at the center of an ownership dispute between Harry Macklowe and CIM Group have gone into contract.

A buyer in the building has agreed to pay $53 million for units 78A and 78B, which combine to span the entire 78th floor, two sources familiar with the deal told The Real Deal.

The seller is an entity tied to the building’s sponsor, CIM Group, and not, as some had previously been led to believe, Harry Macklowe, who lost the units last year after he defaulted on the loans he had taken out from CIM to purchase the units in 2021.

If the deal closes at that price, it would be nearly exactly how much CIM claimed Macklowe owed in October 2023, when it had originally scheduled a foreclosure sale for the units, according to court filings.

Macklowe paid roughly $47 million for the two 78th-floor units and a smaller 28th-floor unit, according to public records. The deal does not include the accessory unit, a source told TRD.

The kerfuffle over who owned the units began after a Douglas Elliman agent approached the Wall Street Journal with an exclusive story last year about Macklowe’s plan to list the 78th-floor units for $75 million.

Those plans were shot once it was revealed that Macklowe no longer controlled the units. CIM had provided the mezzanine financing for Macklowe when he purchased the units in 2022, over a decade after CIM had helped finance Macklowe’s purchase of the Drake Hotel, which would ultimately become the 432 Park development. A year after buying the penthouse units, in 2023, CIM initiated foreclosure proceedings, which were ultimately halted due to a settlement that gave Macklowe a five-month period to refinance or sell the units.

Macklowe was unable to fulfill the settlement requirements. A court order from July of last year confirmed that the units had been transferred to CIM and that Macklowe and his wife, Patricia Landeau, were ordered to vacate the premises by the end of August.

The 78th-floor spans 8,300 square feet and is divided into one larger 7,000-square-foot unit and a smaller 1,200-square-foot unit. The second unit could be “seamlessly combined or maintained as a separate guest apartment,” according to marketing materials provided to the Journal.

Serhant’s Glenn Davis and Nicholas Compagnone had the off-market listing, according to multiple sources.

Managing to sell the units for more than Macklowe paid is still a win in a building that has faced a slew of bad press around lawsuits between the condo board and the developers, Macklowe and CIM, in the last few years.

A lawsuit filed by the condo in 2021 alleged that the 125-unit building was plagued with noise issues, leaks and broken elevators. The developers have denied those claims, but the residents followed up last year with another lawsuit claiming Macklowe and CIM knew the building would have problems and proceeded anyway.

The drama has seemed to weigh on the prices of units for sale. Ten of the 13 units currently listed on StreetEasy have experienced a price drop. Unit 84B, one of the units without a price drop, is listed for $75 million after its owner, Jose Cuervo owner Juan Beckmann Vidal, had reportedly originally considered listing it for $90 million.