Gary Barnett

Barnett is arguably New York’s master builder — shaping the city’s skyline from Billionaire’s Row to the Lower East Side and beyond. 

His latest era-defining project is a commercial tower at 570 Fifth Avenue, for which the Extell chief bought the last holdout parcel earlier this year, capping off a 10-year assemblage. 

“We paid a stupid price, but it gives us the whole block, which is amazing,” Barnett told the Post. “It’s the largest footprint available in Midtown and maybe anywhere.”

To build his 29-story, 1.1 million-square-foot building, Barnett last year struck a deal with the parent company of IKEA, which will open an 80,000-square-foot store at its base. The law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett reportedly plans to anchor the office portion with 700,000 square feet of space.

The clever assembly and creative thinking is classic Barnett, the kind of proficiency that brought One57 and Central Park Tower to 57th Street, as well as One Manhattan Square in Two Bridges and Brooklyn Point in Downtown Brooklyn.

Barnett has — time and again — shown himself to be ahead of the curve, and he sets the high-water mark for Big Apple developers.