220 Central Park South dominates NYC’s priciest sales of 2019

An unknown buyer is the latest to join the gaggle of billionaires and celebrities purchasing luxe units at 220 Central Park South, the most exclusive condo tower on Billionaires’ Row.

The apartment in question sold for $92.7 million, according to property records. The sale comes less than a week after the Wall Street Journal reported that a four-bedroom penthouse had sold in the building for $100 million, making it only the third in New York City’s history to break into the nine-digit club.

Earlier this year, hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin broke the record for the city’s—and the country’s—most expensive home ever purchased with his $238 million deal for an apartment at the Robert A.M. Stern-designed building (which helped reignite calls for a pied-à-terre tax). Before that, the priciest sale was Dell CEO Michael Dell’s purchase of a $100.47 million penthouse at One57.

It’s been a big year for 220 Central Park South: The limestone-clad skyscraper dominates the list of New York City’s priciest closed sales of 2019, with more than half of the year’s 20 most expensive sales, according to data compiled by PropertyShark. These latest two deals join 11 other astronomical buys in the building, with the least expensive an April condo purchase for $34.3 million and the most expensive—behind Ken Griffin’s pad and the newest sales—being the June sale of three units for a combined $80 million.

The lure of owning a piece of the Vornado-developed project is no doubt its exclusivity; having an address at the most exclusive building on the ultra-exclusive Billionaires’ Row is the ultimate status symbol. As Vornado puts it on its website, 220 Central Park South is the “preeminent new address in New York.”

Positioned at the southern edge of Central Park, the 79-story tower offers views of the park’s full south-to-north length and may be getting a Jean-Georges residents-only restaurant. It was intentionally marketed with an air of mystery—the building has never listed an apartment publicly—and its known residents reflect that, with a cast of billionaires and celebrities taking up residence. Among them are the musician Sting, billionaire investor Daniel Och, and David Mandelbaum, an owner of the Minnesota Vikings football team.

Other pricey purchases this year were mostly concentrated on the Upper East Side with a few scattered in lower Manhattan. Of the 20 priciest sales of 2019, only one wasn’t a condo. PropertyShark data shows that the lone single-family sale was a townhouse at 14 East 67th Street, which hedge funder John Griffin purchased in June for $77 million.

Aside from 220 Central Park South, the only repeat address for the year’s top sales was at another Robert A.M. Stern-designed building, 70 Vestry Street in Tribeca, where two condos were separately purchased for $40.7 million and $39.2 million at the start of the year. Noticeably lacking from top sales were buildings that dominated in years prior, such as the skinny supertall designed by Rafael Viñoly at 432 Park Avenue and the original Billionaires’ Row building, One57, designed by Christian de Portzamparc.