New Yorkers want “more sex than usual” — at least, in their new development bathrooms.
Michael Jones, a partner at Robert A.M. Stern Architects, says “sexy” bathrooms are in high demand at luxury projects in the city, referencing the cross-pollination between design trends in Manhattan and South Florida.
“Everybody wants a sexy bathroom,” said top Brown Harris Stevens broker Lisa Lippman, who joined Jones on stage at the Hotel Monteleone.
But Jones said demand has reached new aspirational heights. Think “big, huge bathrooms with crazy showers” and “windows overlooking Central Park,” he noted on a panel at the National Association of Real Estate Editors’ annual conference in New Orleans on Wednesday.
Jones said that while his firm has focused more on developing “traditional” buildings in New York, some elements of the sleek, glassy condo style popular in Miami are making their way into his designs for buildings in the city, as a similar pool of buyers shops in each market.
Jones said that in the years since the condo development boom in the early 2010s, his firm has strayed from the “glass box” development that dominated the market at the time. Instead, they leaned into the pre-war aesthetic his company was known for, a bet he said has paid off as developers in other markets are tapping the company to bring that same style to their cities.
“I just started designing classical buildings when I was young in college. I liked it. I had no idea it was going to pick up,” Jones said. “I just did something I love, and it turns out, other people are loving it.”
Jones said it was his firm’s commitment to the classics that helped Vornado Realty Trust’s 220 Central Park South, dubbed the world’s most profitable condo, stand out from the other glitzy supertalls on Billionaires’ Row.
“Everybody wanted to live in it,” Jones said.
He added that Vornado CEO Steve Roth opted for a no-advertising, invitation-only approach, which ultimately paid off. The tower was able to command record-breaking prices, including the $236 million sale of its pinnacle penthouse to billionaire Ken Griffin.
“People were dying to get into that building,” Jones said. “The price kept going on up, and then all the sudden, the most expensive part was sold.”
The intrigue described by Jones mirrors a similar phenomenon playing out on the West Side downtown, as the Zeckendorfs and Atlas Capital Group continue to quietly shop units at 80 Clarkson. The sales team at the building has yet to release any numbers on sales activity, but rumor suggests that buyers have already locked down a substantial number of units.
The developers still haven’t provided a full picture of pricing at the property. But it became clearer this week with the asking price of a duplex penthouse revealed in a new filing. At $80 million, the unit’s asking price would set a new record for Downtown Manhattan, but for now adds to the property’s projected sellout of close to $2 billion.
Not so fast…
Home prices across the country set a new record, with cities in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania landing the largest annual upticks,
The median sale price nationwide was $396,500 for the four-week period ending June 15th, marking an all-time high, according to a report published by Redfin on Friday. Though the metric pushed pricing to new heights, it represented just a 1 percent increase from home prices in the same period last year.
While the median sale price was high, it was about $26,000 lower than the median asking price, which report author Dana Anderson attributed to more negotiability among sellers who outnumbered buyers during the period.
New York City ranked fifth among the cities with the highest annual increase in price, with the median sale price rising 4 percent year-over-year. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, topped the list with a 5.5 percent annual increase, followed by New Brunswick, New Jersey, at 5.4 percent, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at 5.3 percent and Nassau County, New York, at 5 percent.
NYC Deal of the Week
A penthouse in Tribeca snagged the city’s most expensive deal to hit the city register this week. The five-bedroom apartment at Elad Group’s 108 Leonard Street sold for $21.3 million, or $3,400 per square foot. The triplex unit, known as PHN, spans more than 6,200 square feet and has five bathrooms and 2,200 square feet of outdoor space.
Douglas Elliman’s Elena Sarkissian, Jane Powers and Raphael De Niro had the listing.
Read more
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