NYC Penthouse for Sale at a 'Try-God Price'

It's atop 432 Park Avenue, which the 'NYT' describes as a 'troubled' building
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 29, 2021 10:05 AM CDT
NYC Penthouse Listed for $20K per Square Foot
432 Park Avenue towers over the buildings around it.   (Getty Images)

Amid ongoing news of the condo-collapse tragedy, one might think it's not a great time to try to sell an apartment in what the New York Times calls a "troubled" tower, and especially not at an asking price of $169 million. But that's exactly what's happening in Manhattan, where the 96th-floor penthouse apartment is up for sale at 432 Park Avenue, a building beset with some issues, according to residents. Those include creaking walls, elevators stymied by high winds, and millions of dollars in water damage from leaks in the building's middle and top. And yet the penthouse is now up for grabs at a price the Times calls "one of the most ambitious listings in the country since the start of the pandemic." The building's developers tell the Wall Street Journal the issues detailed by the Times are being rectified.

Saudi owner Fawaz Alhokair paid $88 million for the 8,225-square-foot unit, which has six bedrooms, in 2016. His asking price works out to more than $20,000 a square foot. That's shoulders above the current record of $13,049 a square foot set in 2012. The building had been the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere until the nearby Central Park Tower came on the scene. Two good quotes from Olshan Realty President Donna Olshan, per the Times: "This is like a try-God price" and "I just think rich people want what they want. Their money overrides all else, even sensibility." And one last jaw-dropping figure: Annual taxes on the penthouse are $177,730. (A coveted parking space recently sold for a bananas price.)

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