Vornado’s 220 Central Park South approaches $3B in total sales

What happens when the world’s most profitable condo hits a major sales milestone? Vornado Realty Trust doesn’t celebrate and tell.

The next deal at 220 Central Park South will almost certainly push the value of total sales at the exclusive Billionaires’ Row tower past the $3 billion mark.

On an earnings call last week, Vornado announced that it had closed sales on 104 of the building’s 118 units as of Sept. 30, garnering net proceeds of $2.97 billion.

One more sponsor unit has sold since then: a $27.4 million condo that pushed net proceeds up to $2.99 billion.

One might assume a milestone like that is enough to break out the bubbly, with the number of unsold condo units nearing single-digits. Alas, what this means for the building — and Vornado’s plans to celebrate — remains a mystery.

Corcoran’s Deborah Kern, who handles sales at the glitzy tower, was unavailable for comment. Vornado did not respond to requests for comment, though a communications rep said the chance of the REIT saying anything at all was unlikely.

On the earnings call, Vornado announced that it had closed on a $25.5 million condo in the third quarter, resulting in $10.1 million in net profit. Not including the condo that closed in October, the sale was one of the four sponsor units that have sold since the start of the year for a total of $97.7 million, resulting in a net gain of $35.4 million, the REIT reported.

The deals come at a time when Manhattan’s luxury market is at a frenzy, setting records left and right. By the end of September, buyers had signed contracts to purchase $11.4 billion worth of luxury homes in Manhattan this year, already eclipsing the record $11.3 billion set in 2014.

Fanfare or no, 220 Central Park South has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to command eye-popping prices. Two of the biggest home purchases in U.S. history took place there, including hedge fund manager Ken Griffin’s $238 million penthouse deal in 2019, and two condo units, both resales, bought by tech entrepreneur Joe Tsai for $158 million in June.

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