How 111 West 57th Went from Billionaires’ Row Dud to Darling

Three years ago, the head of Apollo’s commercial real estate arm, Stuart Rothstein, spent much of the division’s earnings call massaging investor concerns about sales progress at 111 West 57th Street.

Apollo had just written down its $82 million junior mezzanine loan on the project after the Billionaires’ Row tower entered its fifth year of sales with more than half of its units still unsold.

“We were certainly hopeful that there would be more velocity in terms of the number of units that would be signed,” said Rothstein.

Now in 2026, Rothstein’s hopes appear to have come true as the building has sold 58 of its 59 available units. Just its ambitious $98 million quadplex penthouse is still available.

The turnaround has been orchestrated by top Sotheby’s International Realty broker Nikki Field and her team, who took over sales of the building from Corcoran in July 2024 with 23 units left to sell.

The team has sold $480 million in closings and contracts since taking over, according to data by Field’s team. Those deals included some of the building’s priciest listings, including a triplex penthouse asking $56 million and, last week, a 76th-floor duplex penthouse asking $45 million.

“My team has a history of saving properties,” Field said. “It took us about a month to review it and then decide that we could reinvent it, rebrand it, reposition it.”

Subscribe to TRD Data to unlock this content

“111 West 57th is essentially sold out — a milestone Corcoran helped make possible by selling a significant share of the building at its original pricing,” a Corcoran spokesperson said. “We’re proud of that work and glad to see the project fully realized.”

The resurgence has followed a broader pickup in New York’s luxury market. Manhattan recorded its second-best year since 2006 for contract signings on homes asking at least $4 million in 2025, according to Olshan Realty. But many of the recent largest deals in the city have been in newer developments Downtown and on the Upper East Side, whereas several of the buildings on Billionaires’ Row have lost their luster in recent years amid sales slowdowns and price cuts, making a resurrection at the building far from a sure thing.

“The last thing you want to do is come in as a rescuer and not deliver expectations,” said Field.

A long road

Developed by Michael Stern’s JDS Development Group and Kevin Maloney’s Property Markets Group beginning in 2013, the project was part of the frenzy of ultra-luxury activity clustered around the Midtown corridor that began when Gary Barnett’s Extell Development launched sales in 2011 at 157 West 57th Street.

The years leading up to a 2018 sales launch — delayed from 2016 because of a softening market — were not difficult ones for the project.

It faced capital shortfalls from rising construction costs and eventually defaulted on a $725 million loan from Apollo Global Management and AIG. At the same time, the developers faced lawsuits from a spurned investor, AmBase, who alleged it had its shares in the project improperly diluted (AmBase’s claims have since been dismissed in court, which it has continued to appeal).

Stretching over 1,400 feet high and just 60 feet wide, 111 West 57th became known for its slender frame, which grows narrower from a series of feathery setbacks towards the top of the building.

When the building began selling in 2018 with a team from Douglas Elliman, it notched a number of headline-grabbing deals, including one for a $58 million penthouse in 2019. But by 2022, the developers tapped Corcoran to take over sales, who oversaw another $100 million in sales in the first half of 2024 alone and closed out the 14 units in the Steinway Hall portion of the building.

Two years later, Apollo gave Field a call, she said, and they wanted to “get out as quickly as possible.”

New pricing, new approach

One factor in Field’s favor was a series of price cuts put into place months before her team took over, according to data by Marketproof. In March 2024, the building revised pricing down around 20 percent on nine units. A 69th-floor three-bedroom originally on the market for over $30 million had its price slashed 30 percent to $20.5 million.

That has helped the remaining units sell for just under 8 percent off asking prices after going for an average of 17 percent under asking price, according to Marketproof. But under both sales teams, deals have closed for 10 to 20 percent under the prices laid out in the original offering plan.

“They got realistic with pricing,” said Jorge Lopez, founder of Mundi Group, which helped “all of the positives of the building” come into focus.

Lopez also credited the “refreshed approach” he felt at the building, something that Field said her team spent a lot of time thinking through.

“It was not presenting ultra luxury,” she said. “You needed a much better experience from the curb on up through the presentation.”

Field turned over much of the building’s staff, which included bringing on a new general manager from the Mandarin Oriental Residences and recruiting a Casa Cipriani alumnus for a newly-created lobby ambassador position to tend to resident requests like hard-to-get reservations in the city. She also brought on Le Bilboquet to provide catering and complimentary breakfast seven days a week, and switched the building’s primary entrance to be on 58th Street instead of 57th Street.

The building also created some positive buzz when Shark Tank star and entrepreneur Robert Herjavec moved to 111 West 57th from a competing Billionaires’ Row tower, One57, and publicly touted his excitement about his new digs in the Wall Street Journal in August.

Lopez, who represented Herjavec in the deal, said the credibility his client brought to the building helped with a “special rate” — 10 percent off the home’s $22.5 million asking price.

Last April, well-known British developer Christian Candy and his wife, Emily Crompton-Candy, also bought a penthouse for $46 million, down 17 percent from its $56 million asking price, which came with another spread in the Journal.

“A couple of big names got bigger discounts because we wanted them in the building, and we knew that they would attract other buyers,” Field said.

Field said she also eliminated concessions and credits at the building, a popular tool for sales teams trying to quickly move new development stock. “The brokers ended up believing it was a better building, and the buyers ultimately proved that by putting their money on the table,” she said.

The half a billion in sales has helped pay off a $200 million loan, which was senior to Apollo’s debt, and has left the firm as the sole lender at the project, with its loan set to mature this November.

“Apollo has our names on a plaque,” Field said.