NEW YORK | 432 Park Ave | 1,397 FT | 85 FLOORS

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Meet the house that inequality built: 432 Park Avenue

By Joshua Brown on November 24, 2014, 12:19 PM EST

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With over 400,000 square feet of usable interior space, there are only 104 units for people to live in. 432 Park Avenue is a monument to the epic rise of the global super-wealthy.

…As of this writing, there are currently plans for eight more ultra-luxe towers in and around Manhattan, in various stages of development. The explosion of wealth among ultra high net worth (UNHW) individuals around the world has made all of this possible. According to a new study from UBS and Wealth-X, there are 211,275 people in the world who could be considered ultra high net worth, with assets totaling north of $30 million. The approximate amount of wealth controlled by this group is estimated at just under $30 trillion. And while the number of UHNW people grew by 6% since 2013, their assets grew by 7%.

But these figures obscure an even more important trend taking root among the UHNW rankings: People with over a billion dollars in assets (there are 2,325 of them) saw their wealth increase by 12% year over year, while those at the bottom of the group—the 91,000 people with assets between $30 million and $49 million—realized a comparatively smaller 7% bump in wealth. Those at the top of the top are seeing their fortunes grow twice as fast as those at the bottom of the top. And the number of UHNW individuals who fall in the $750 million to $1 billion category saw their ranks swell by 20% this year to over 1,200 people. The bottom line is that the richer you are, the faster you’re getting even richer.

This explains why a city like New York can build dozens of ultra-luxury residential towers and continue to sell out. In New York alone, it is estimated that there are 8,655 full-time residents who would be categorized as ultra-high net worth, the most of any city in the world. Wealth-X finds that the average UHNW individual owns 2.7 properties and that 8% of their wealth is invested in real estate. Logically speaking, as their wealth grows, so too does their capacity to own and invest in an increasing amount of high-end housing.

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iPhone pic-- near LIC on LIRR

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December 26th, 2014

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Credit: All sizes | Manhattan from the Air | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

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What’s Happening to New York’s Skyline?

By Francis X. Clinesjan on January 1, 2015


A view of 432 Park Avenue. Credit Byron Smith for The New York Times

It’s not a tourist attraction yet, but when hard-hatted construction workers journey down from the summit of 432 Park Avenue at 57th Street they proudly rattle off-sky-high statistics — 1,396 feet and 96 stories tall — that now make the luxury condominium tower in Midtown the tallest habitable building in the city.

It’s already an eye-popping distraction for miles out into the suburbs and surrounding countryside as it soars up, way up, from Manhattan’s signature skyline.

Get used to the rise of what are called pencil towers. There will be more, with a dozen or so planned in the next several years in mid-Manhattan, as the city’s silhouette yields to a new era of Slim Jim buildings with small footprints that build straight up, not out, as 432 Park does from a base of only 93 feet by 93 feet.

The tower is already a fascinating cynosure for considered condemnation or approval by groundlings for daring to rise up like … what? Gotham’s fickle finger of real estate wealth signaling the next Gilded Age? A giant upraised baton cuing us all to a symphony of conspicuous consumption, topped by a $95-million penthouse nestled amid the clouds?

…Superlatives are the only rule in New York. The pencil tower at 432 Park stands 28-feet taller than the new One World Trade Center downtown when you discount that building’s spire, the element that allows it to secure its post-9/11 claim of 1,776 feet. The Empire State Building isn’t even close, sweet as it rests down there on 34th Street. The new tower is so tall it had to get construction clearance from air control regulators at the Federal Aviation Administration; other new pencil towers may need clearance, too.

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432 Park Ave. Has a View Only Money Can Buy

Harry Macklowe Invites Ralph Gardner Jr. to the Top of His Luxury Condo

By RALPH GARDNER JR.
Jan. 12, 2015 8:52 p.m. ET

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The view of the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center from 432 Park Ave. KEITH BEDFORD FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

I’d been trying to wrangle a visit to the summit of 432 Park Ave. since last summer. So I was pleasantly surprised when I received an email in mid-November from Harry Macklowe, the tower’s developer, inviting me for a tour.

The luxury condominium at Park Avenue and 56th Street dwarfs the surrounding neighborhood—and the surrounding neighborhood isn’t quaint brownstones but skyscrapers in their own right.

In fact, 432 Park Ave. became the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere when it reached its peak height in mid-October. At 1,396 feet, the skyscraper is taller than either the Empire State Building or One World Trade Center—minus their antennas.

Still far from completion, the super-slim high-rise has already become a symbol of ostentatious wealth. Its tenants aren’t expected to be primarily extremely rich Americans, but the international plutocracy: Chinese billionaires and absentee Russian oligarchs, though with the plummeting price of oil there may be fewer to pick from.

I say I was pleasantly surprised that Mr. Macklowe contacted me because a column I’d written only a month earlier didn’t have the friendliest things to say about his structure, which sticks out like a sore thumb—or an even more emotive finger.

Our visit to 432 Park Ave. was scheduled and canceled several times, though, because of storms. The building is so tall that the weather is sometimes different at the bottom and the top: At this time of year, it may be raining at the base and snowing at the summit.

“It’s roughly a 20 degree differential from the ground floor to the top,” said John Sjölund, the tower’s senior project manager, as we boarded a construction elevator and headed to the 96th floor. “A couple of days, we went through a cloud bank and the hoist went above the clouds.”

Unfortunately, Mr. Macklowe couldn’t join us. I was told he was leaving on vacation the next day.

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With a move to demolish a five-story building adjacent to 432 Park Avenue, Macklowe Properties appears to be eyeing an expansion of the skyscraper’s retail footprint.

Demolition permits were filed today for the narrow commercial building at 36 East 57th Street that abuts 432 Park’s retail component facing 57th Street. The 25-foot wide building changed hands for $65.3 million in August, when Robert Zirinsky bought the 9,148-square-foot building from Solil Management, the company that controls the assets of late real estate mogul Sol Goldman. The building has 37,000 buildable square feet.

The demolition permit was filed by New York Medical Investors LLC, which shares an address with Zirinsky, and by Macklowe Properties. The permit included an email address for David Dods, the senior project executive for 432 Park, and a phone number for Mary Leprohon, Macklowe Properties’ controller and treasurer. In July, Macklowe and an unidentified foreign equity partner snagged the retail portion of 432 Park for $450 million, as The Real Deal reported.

Previously, the developer had approached owners on 57th Street in an attempt to create a larger retail presence on the red-hot retail corridor. Zirinsky did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Macklowe Properties declined to comment.

A clause in the deed for 36 East 57th Street states that the buyer cannot sell the building or transfer interest before July 30, 2016, unless “considered payment is made” to the seller.

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The Logic of an Empty $100 Million Pad

By David Gelles on February 9, 2015


Views from 432 Park Avenue include the MetLife Building and the Empire State Building. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

For most investors, a diversified portfolio means a prudent mix of stocks and bonds. For the global elite, diversification increasingly means splurging on New York apartments that can cost tens of millions of dollars, or more.

Across Manhattan, real estate developers are scrambling to meet surging demand from buyers around the world who are prepared to pay record-setting prices for new developments with opulent finishes and extraordinary views.

These buyers — some of whom obscure their identities through webs of shell companies— are not all rushing to call the Big Apple home. Instead, many of them are paying record prices with the expectation that their investments will appreciate, even as they sit empty for most of the year.

Last month, the buying frenzy reached new extremes, with one apartment changing hands for more than $100 million.
Yet at the upper echelons of the property market, the lines between prudent investing and splashy one-upmanship are inherently blurred.


Residents have striking views of Central Park from the One57 tower. Credit Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times

When you’re talking about a bank account that big, diversification is a basic rule of economics and investment,” Mr. Henckels said. “It’s a wonderful way to justify investing in your toys.”

Head-scratching prices aside, New York real estate has proved to be a durable, even lucrative long-term investment. Residential property in Manhattan appreciated 26 percent over the last five years, according to data from the Corcoran Group.

That’s not bad. But compared to stocks, which have rebounded sharply since the financial crisis, it is subpar. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index is up more than 75 percent over the same period.

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World’s Longest Commutes, by Elevator

We calculate the ‘elevator miles’ logged by residents of super-tall condo towers around the world.

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By ADAM BONISLAWSKI on January 22, 2015

Luxury high-rises are all the rage, with colossal apartment towers sprouting across the globe. But while living a quarter of a mile in the sky is no doubt thrilling, the commute downstairs can be a doozy.

Just how far do residents of these super-tall towers travel every year? Spread Sheet set out to measure the vertical commute.

Upon completion in 2016, Mumbai’s World One tower will be the tallest purely residential building in the world, topping out at 1,450 feet, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a nonprofit that tracks the official heights of tall buildings.

Assuming one trip down and up each day, a top-floor dweller would cover around 200 miles a year in elevator travel. Make that two trips a day (say, you forgot to buy milk) and you’re up to 400 miles a year, slightly longer than the drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

The resident on the top floor of 1,397-foot-tall 432 Park Avenue in Manhattan making two round-trips a day would log around 356 elevator miles each year—the equivalent of two trips out to the Hamptons and back. Someone living in a third-floor walk-up in Midtown Manhattan, on the other hand, does around 5.5 miles a year—not even enough to get through Queens.

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Beautiful shots NYCD. :wink:

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Thanks Chris! :smiley:

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April 11th, 2015



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My updates from the past three months

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Pic taken by me

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