Aby Rosen’s RFR Selling 281 Park Avenue South

Aby Rosen’s got one last bit of intrigue at 281 Park Avenue South.

Rosen’s RFR is in contract to sell the building — made famous by the scammer who went by Anna Delvey — to a mystery buyer for $81.5 million, The Real Deal has learned.

The ornate, Beaux Arts-style landmark is empty after the former tenant Fotografiska left last year.

While the identity of the buyer isn’t known, the New York Post reported that it is not Anna Sorokin, the con artist who in 2017 tried to lease the building and turn it into a private club.

A representative for RFR declined to comment. An Avison Young team led by James Nelson marketed the property, alongside Ryan Serhant.

The contract price works out to about $2,000 per square foot. That’s a big premium compared to a recent comp in the neighborhood: Olmstead Properties’ purchase of 373 and 381 Park Avenue South last year for $104 million, or about $300 per square foot.

RFR had invested heavily in 281 Park Avenue South, including overhauling the building’s elevators and mechanical systems.

Rosen bought the 42,500-square-foot building, built in 1894 as the Church Missions House, for $50 million in 2014. RFR struggled at first to lease the property, until the Swedish museum Fotografiska took the entire space in 2017.

RFR tried to sell the building in 2022 for $135 million, but a deal never got done.

Sorokin rose to infamy in 2018 when New York Magazine exposed how she posed as a German heiress with a massive trust fund to scam her way into the city’s deep-pocked social circles. Netflix’s later dramatized the outrageous story in “Inventing Anna,” starring Julia Garner in the title role.

As part of her ruse, she tried to get a loan for a club at the Park Avenue South building, pitching it in the vein of Soho House and estimating its costs at more than $40 million. She was eventually acquitted of trying to fraudulently obtain a $22 million loan from Fortress Investment Group for the club but was convicted on larceny and fraud charges.

She was sentenced to 4 to 12 years in prison and was released in 2021 on parole after roughly two. She later did a stint in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center for overstaying her visa.

She’s been on house arrest since her release and appears to be facing deportation.