Walker Tower’s penthouse — which set a Downtown sales record when it sold for $50.9 million last year – is back on the market asking $70 million, a nearly 40 percent premium.
The current asking price equates to nearly $11,800 per square foot, a large markup over the $8,547-per-square-foot price paid by the current owner, Neil Moffitt, the CEO of high-end Cantonese restaurant chain, Hakkasan, and Angel Management Group, a music venue manager. The apartment has five bedrooms, five-and-a-half bathrooms and nearly 13-foot-high ceilings.
“It’s a real special one, and I’m not saying that just because of the price point,”listing agent Kamali Chandler of Sotheby’s International Realty told The Real Deal. “You walk in there and it’s worth every dollar.”
She declined to comment on whether the current owner occupied the unit, but said she worked with top designers to stage the apartment with furniture and art.
Michael Stern’s JDS Development Group and Kevin Maloney’s Property Markets Group bought the former Verizon building at 212 West 18th Street in 2008 and converted the Art Deco building into 50 high-end residential condos that hit the market in 2012.
The city’s most expensive condo sale to date was at Extell Development’s One57, where a penthouse traded for $100.5 million, or $9,200 per square foot. In March, billionaire Len Blavatnik broke the city’s co-op sales record when he bought a penthouse at 834 Fifth Avenue for $77.5 million, or approximately $11,500 per square foot.
Chandler said the current buyer is looking to set another Downtown record. “We’re certainly trying to get those numbers and I’ve already gotten two phone calls for showings,” she said. “I hit send and someone from my office called me within 30 seconds.”