Inside Secretive Upper East Side Condo 200 East 79th Street

The 39-unit building at 200 East 79th Street unveiled itself in early October, after much caginess. The sales office is partly staged to look like an apartment, so Curbed photographer Will Femia headed over to take some photos and lift the veil of secrecy once and for all. The minimal advertising?the only real advance information available about the project was the mini model affixed to the building signage?was intentional. Skyline Developers' Orin Wilf, who spent seven years assembling the site for this project, told the marketing team to rely on "location and visibility" to sell the building, so there wasn't much more to be done. There were 25 signed contracts, with another eight contracts out to potential buyers, as of last week, Wilf tells us, and the sales office still hasn't received the brochures and floorplans it had printed. Oh well.
The in-contract units have gone for prices between $3 million and $14 million?which doesn't tell us much, since that's also the broad price range for the building. The buyer mix includes Upper East Siders, Upper West Siders, a handful of downtowners, and a few foreign buyers, according to Wilf, and most buyers intend to move into the apartments rather than hanging onto them as investments. If anyone does choose to rent, there will probably be takers, since several apartments have had waiting lists 10 buyers deep.
· Official site: 200 East 79th Street [200e79.com]
· 200 East 79th Street coverage [Curbed]