New York City has a personality as macho and rock solid as the Brooklyn Bridge. That sense of self doesn’t change easily. But a new trend in high-rise residential real estate might be putting a dent in Gotham’s impregnable armor.
Racing skyward in midtown Manhattan are ever taller, ever thinner high-rise condos that are breaking records ranging from altitude to price. That has not escaped the attention of Vanity Fair magazine, which published a feature story about the trend in a recent edition.
One of the projects spotlighted is 432 Park Ave., which will contain 104 apartments that will occupy either an entire floor or a half-floor. The loftiest of them all, a full-floor unit on the 96th floor, will be the highest residence in the Western Hemisphere. That penthouse has already sold for $95 million to an unidentified buyer.
As 432 Park Ave. and other super-luxury condo towers soar skyward, shadows creep across Central Park and call into question the longer-term architectural character of Manhattan. The schematic info-graphic produced to accompany the Vanity Fair article offers a fuller picture of the magnitude of the high-rise condo boom.
Perhaps, as the article suggests, real estate projects really can be too rich, too tall and too slim — at least for a city that prides itself on rock-ribbed masculinity.
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Mike Consol is editor of The Institutional Real Estate Letter – Americas.
