‘These vagabond shoes are longing to stray… right through the very heart of it,’ goes the classic ode by Frank Sinatra to the city that never sleeps; the Big Apple; the Empire State of Mind. You know the one I mean.
More and more of these vagabond shoes are red-soled Christian Louboutins, and if they’re longing to stray, then buy a place to stay, right in the very heart of New York, America’s undisputed capital of culture, luxury, and foreign high net worth individuals [HNWIs].
432 Park Avenue is the latest spire to pierce the skies of Manhattan, a new-construction skyscraper on 57th Street between Park and Madison, whose 426-meter height earns it ‘supertall’ status. It is the tallest residential tower in the Western hemisphere. It is also a latter-day Tower of Babel, attracting wealthy buyers from all over the world with its ultra-modern skinny needle shape, as well as amenities that surpass those of the most luxury hotels.
“Location, privacy, and a sense of luxury are always at the top of HNWIs’ list when it comes to real estate,” says Richard Wallgren, the Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Macklowe Properties, one of 432 Park Avenue’s developers. “432 Park Avenue has the best location of any new development in New York,” he continues, as well as a private residential porte-cochère entrance, and the “best in class in design, both internally and externally.”
The best in class in the world’s highest homes, as one might imagine, doesn’t come cheap. Given the value these clients place on privacy, it’s no surprise to learn that, as a rule, Macklowe Properties “does not comment on individual purchases in 432 Park Avenue.” But, New York real estate news website The Real Deal reported in May 2015 that Fawaz Al Hokair, the Saudi billionaire real estate mogul, purchased a 767-square-metre penthouse with “10-foot-by-10-foot windows, unheard of for new-construction skyscrapers” in the building for a near record 95 million USD, while Lebanese businessman, Maher Mikati, CEO of M1 Fashion, acquired a three-bedroom unit for 28 million USD.
It’s unquestionably one of the world’s great cities, but it wasn’t always so. In the 1970s, New York was a city with a hard luck reputation, ridden with crime, both violent and petty, which peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s with both crack and HIV epidemics. It wasn’t until the 1990s that a miracle of urban rebirth – spurred by then-mayor David Dinkins’s ‘Safe Streets, Safe Cities’ programme and a major effort by the New York City Department of Police to reduce crime- that NYC returned to it’s former glory, a place that had lured starry-eyed migrants with the opportunity to strike it richer than anywhere else – see Andy Warhol & Edie Sedgwick, Madonna and Carrie Bradshaw – a place where small potatoes could eventually turn you into the big cheese.
Headlines of murder, drugs, and gang violence were replaced by news of fabulous new restaurants teeming with celebrities (Balthazar, Cipriani, Daniel), coffee shops manned by impossibly cool Ethan Hawkes and Chloe Sevignys on corners where kids used to sell heroin (anywhere on the Lower East Side), and the world’s most hip new shopping and clubbing neighbourhoods (SoHo and the Meatpacking District, respectively). That Frank Sinatra tune, HBO’s blockbuster hit show ‘Sex and the City’, and all the city’s nicknames and urban legends became organic marketing for New York’s hotels, restaurants, museums, and department stores. And tourism numbers keep soaring: the city is expecting 59.7 million visitors in 2016, according to the New York Times, and is on track to hit 67 million annual visitors by 2021.
The drive to attract foreign tourists and shoppers extended to those looking to buy luxury homes. In 2013, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg said “If we could get every billionaire around the world to move here, it would be a godsend.”
In this goal, he and the other members of the New York City government largely succeeded. Time Warner Center, a luxury residential and commercial building on Columbus Circle, whose condominiums went on the market shortly after the attacks of September 11th, 2001, is an archetype of the trend of foreign high net worth individuals purchasing real estate in New York. A February 2015 New York Times article reports that the building is home to at least 17 billionaires on Forbes’ annual list of the world’s richest people, as well as five of the world’s leading art collectors, entertainment and sports celebrities, and members of the Saudi royal family. Half of recent sales have been to foreign buyers, and only a third of the building’s units are continuously occupied.
The reason? New York is one of the world’s most successfully branded cities. The classic ‘I Love NY’ logo, created in the 1970s to build pride in a blighted city, has become ubiquitous worldwide as a symbol of commerce, pleasure, and even freedom. Branding expert Jonathan Gabay, founder of Brand Forensics, has written that “New York is the world’s greatest branded city…. driven by a single-minded leadership about what New York is: an eclectic mix of people, all of whom have the potential to realise their dream if they work at it. NYC means a can-do attitude that manifests itself in everything from towering skyscrapers to customer service.”
In many ways, 432 Park Avenue represents the best of the diverse brand that is New York, a brand that foreign investors are apparently so eager to buy into. Richard Wellgren of Macklowe Properties says that “the building lends itself well to different demographics and we have seen a wide range of interest from various markets.” Regarding buyers from the Arab world, “New York real estate is considered a traditional favourite for Middle Eastern buyers looking to buy luxury property.”
For those in the market, nine of the 102 units in 432 Park Avenue remain unsold, according to the building’s website. They run from a three-bedroom, four-and-a-half bath unit on the 36th floor with views to the north, east, and south for 17.5 million USD, to the 95th floor penthouse (just one floor beneath Sheikh Fawaz), featuring six bedrooms and seven bathrooms, views to the north, south, east, and west through wraparound windows, for 82 million USD.
Communal facilities include a labyrinthine floor of massage, spa, and exercise rooms as well as a 23-metre lap pool. A full floor is dedicated to entertaining, with a cosy billiards room, lounge, screening room, performance venue, and library curated by luxury publishing house Assouline. There is also a private restaurant on the 12th floor helmed by Michelin-starred chef Shaun Hergatt.
Each apartment features 3.8-metre ceilings, wide-plank solid oak flooring, motorised window shades throughout, windowed eat-in kitchen with marble breakfast bar, integrated Miele stainless steel appliances, marble countertops and flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms, freestanding soaking tub, freestanding marble stall shower, as well as heated bathroom floors, for when it’s time to kick off those vagabond Louboutins.
