2013年11月29日
纽约：亿万富翁之都
当然，这一趋势并不是前所未有的。在西村的 Superior Ink大厦，有七套三到四层的住宅，2009年开始，里面有了住户。其中，一个新英式乔治亚风（neo-Georgian-styled）的单元被路易威 登（Louis Vuitton）的设计师Marc Jacobs以1050万美元的价格拿下；而另一间4865平方英尺的房子挂牌价1400万美元。当下，还有很多类似规模的房产进驻曼哈顿的最佳地段。在 Superior Ink大厦附近的查尔斯街（Charles Street）150号，那里最近售出了91套房子，其中包括了10套有着独立入口和私人车库的公寓。在这幢高达16层楼的大厦内，一套配备了75英尺的 泳池、3000平方英尺健身馆以及可以观赏自然庭院和哈德逊河全景的套房，零售价300万美元；而一套独门独户，配备私人车库的复式住宅 （maisonette）的价格达到了850万到1200万之间。
面向网络办公和家庭办公（NoHo）一族的三幢建于19世纪末期的工业建筑经过改造后，混合了loft、豪华套房和三到四室的公寓。其中，公寓的底 层可以改建成酒窖、家庭影院或者是小型游泳池。这些公寓的大小介于2500到4500平方英尺之间，定价位于675万到1100万美元之间；部分户型还有 独立的中央庭院。到现在为止，有3套公寓已经被售出，其中有2套被从事艺术品收藏的纽约亿万富翁买走。
面积更大的多栋联建式住宅也进军了房地产市场。在格拉莫西公园（Gramercy Park）18号，有一套3750平方的跃层式公寓，售价953万美元。除此之外，在Tribeca的哈里森街（Harrison Street）7号上，一间原本用作仓库的红砖建筑被改建成了12间分契式公寓（condominium）。虽然它的售价要等到年末才会公布，那些纽约的 买家们已然排起了队。
复苏的房产市场
事 实上，在将近5年的“冬眠期”之后，包括哈里森街7号在内的好几个项目都全新开启。在这之中，最有建筑设计感的要数56 Leonard，由获得普利策奖的二人组Herzog和de Meuron设计的60层高楼。这座建筑将无数个半透明的盒状单元结构像搭积木一样叠在一起，底部由艺术大师Anish Kapoor所设计的一个闪闪发光的雕塑作支撑。这其中的145套套房于2008年进入市场，但是受到金融危机的影响，销售情况一度不大景气。今年三月， 开发商Izak Senbahar再一次公布了报价，在2008年的基础上增长了20%。他介绍说，820英尺高度以上的房子有80%已经售出，累积销售金额达到了9亿美 元。今年六月，一套7800平方英尺的跃层公寓以4700万的价格成交，这也是曼哈顿中城区以南的分契式套房中的最高成交价。
有了名牌建筑师的设计加盟，56 Leonard大楼表现了来自曼哈顿的亿万富翁买家们最显而易见的购房偏好：顶级奢华的住宅式摩天大楼。另外，还有两个在中城区具有相当地位的新晋项目 ——卡耐基音乐厅（Carnegie Hall）对面的One57大楼和公园大道432号上的高端公寓住宅楼。尽管这两处的设施配备和设计风格都不相同，但它们共同印证了Sotheby’s Field所言的“高端纽约”。这两处房产拥有横贯中央公园至哈德逊河的视野，并且毗邻曼哈顿商业、文化和零售中心。建成后，它们将成为全纽约最高的住宅 建筑。
不过更为重要的是，这些公寓式套房将可以满足购房者“拎包入住”的需求。不像十年之前的高端地产Rishard Meier旗下的佩里街大厦（Perry Street Towers），是完全以一个空壳的形式交付给买家的。“今天的买家们希望他们入手的公寓可以免去额外装修和布置的烦恼。”Liebman说：“他们的要 求更复杂，同时也更加国际化；而且他们已经没有什么兴趣去敲掉几堵墙，然后带自己的建筑师来加工一番。”
对于One57的买家而言，大厦中进驻的柏悦酒店（Park Hyatt）已经很好地证实了一点，“人们希望在日常生活中复制旅行时的寄宿式体验。”高端旅行代理Smart Flyer说。鉴于One57中有一半的买家来自国外，所以在住宅楼中加入酒店的元素对他们来说也是相当具有吸引力的。
尽管纽约新晋的亿万富翁买家们正在把房地产的交易价逼近至1亿美元这个临界点，业内人士开始担忧，这样的价格行情是否能够持续下去。One57的开 发商Extell已经在着手建造下一幢高达1500英尺的大厦，预计价格将会超过之前所有的地产。而公园大道432号的房产商Macklowe坚持现定售 价完全是它的价值体现。“天花板高度、精装修和非同寻常的窗户，这些都堪称艺术品。”
虽然有些夸张，Macklowe的话也不全错，伦敦Knight Frank房产中介的住房调研部负责人Liam Bailey评价说。他进一步解释道，纽约，现在已经成为了下一个伦敦——一个全球财富的聚集地，“但是纽约的房地产价格仍然低于伦敦水平。”就一平方英 尺的房屋单价来说，在纽约是2200美元，伦敦4300美元，香港则超过了5000美元。“眼看着纽约的富豪们正在聚敛越来越多的财富，我们有理由相信纽 约的房地产价格会继续增长。”
（本文根据FT旗下奢侈品杂志《如何消费》（How To Spend It）2013年9月刊文章 “I Want to Wake up in that City”编译。“I want to wake up in that city”
New York is now home to the world’s highest concentration of billionaires and some 389,000 millionaires. David Kaufman reports on how this new demographic is redefining the city’s prime residential property market
September 25 2013
David Kaufman
Much like alchemy or the explorer-era search for El Dorado, developing ultra-high-end Manhattan real estate is the ultimate exercise in the unknown. Or at least the uncertain. Build properties that are too big, and younger buyers and singletons may turn away; too small, and families could feel squeezed out. Price them too high, and value-seekers might look elsewhere; too low, and the project may lose its sense of exclusivity.
Which is why a select group of New York City developers is hoping that a finely calibrated mix of size, location, world-class architecture and canny pricing will appeal to the market’s deepest-pocketed buyers. Ranging from towering Park Avenue penthouses to sprawling SoHo lofts, grand Madison Park mansions to private Tribeca town houses, these new luxury property schemes arrive just as New York’s uppermost real estate is fetching record figures. Last year, former Citigroup chairman Sanford Weill sold his penthouse at 15 Central Park West to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev for $88m. At roughly $13,000 per square foot, the Rybolovlev sale was the most ever paid per square foot for a NYC apartment, and more than twice Weill’s 2007 purchase price.
Since then, penthouses at a pair of nearby skyscrapers currently being built – One57 and 432 Park Avenue – have exceeded $90m. Unlike in London, where a penthouse at One Hyde Park sold to Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov for £136.6m, no New York apartment has yet gone for nine figures. But with both One57 and 432 Park Avenue’s developers apparently still raising prices, a $100m sale is certainly possible before all the apartments have been purchased.
Fuelling this price hike is an unprecedented increase in New York-based wealth. According to a May report from consultancy WealthInsight, the city is now home to the world’s highest concentration of billionaires and the second-largest millionaire community after Tokyo. Along with their foreign counterparts, these 70 billionaires and some 389,000 millionaires are redefining the concept of “prime” residential property. And Manhattan developers are scrambling to meet – if not exceed – their ever-more sophisticated demands.
“Billionaires were always bullish on Manhattan, but they were never prepared to pay these kinds of prices before,” says Nikki Field, senior global real-estate adviser at Sotheby’s International. Pamela Liebman, president and CEO of The Corcoran Group, adds: “And it’s not just the typical group of foreign buyers, but a whole new class of billionaires from across America – high-tech folk, energy-boom moguls, people from businesses and places you’ve never seen before.”
While its members may vary in industry and origin, Manhattan’s new generation of billionaire buyers has already established clear priorities and patterns. “Many of today’s wealthiest buyers are seeking properties of at least 6,500sq ft,” says Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers. “What’s more, they want those spaces to be more ‘open plan’ in design, with high ceilings, large windows and full ‘concierge-style’ services.” With properties on this scale still relatively scarce, Manhattan developers are recognising the value of city-centre residences sized like suburban homes.
At The Marquand on East 68th Street, for instance, 41 former rental units in a 1913 building are being converted into just 22 four- to six-bedroom apartments, which will be accompanied by services such as a gym and concierge. The residences, which start at roughly 3,800sq ft, are priced from $15m to $43m, while two approximately 7,000sq ft triplex penthouses are going for $46.5m. Forty-two blocks south, there are a mere four apartments at the brick-and-limestone-clad Whitman – a former textile showroom overlooking leafy Madison Square Park that has been converted into entire-floor homes sized from 4,967sq ft and costing from $10m. Three have been sold (including one to Chelsea Clinton), while the 6,540sq ft penthouse is still available for $25m. “Everyone who has toured the penthouse so far has been an American billionaire,” says Melanie Lazenby, executive vice president at Douglas Elliman Real Estate, which is co-selling the building.
A similar buyer class will be targeted by Jared Kushner, president and CEO of the Kushner Companies and developer of The Puck Building, the Romanesque-revival icon in SoHo built between 1885 and 1893. He is quietly converting the building’s top two floors and adding a third level to create seven penthouses, ranging from 4,895sq ft to one that is more than 7,000sq ft and will cover almost the entire roof. They will start at roughly $20m, and Kushner says that the main penthouse – a duplex entering the market next year – could be listed for three times that. Meanwhile, over in Chelsea, veteran developer Adam Gordon’s new building at 560 West 24th Street will include just eight homes in total, from 3,300sq ft.
Along with sprawling apartments, billionaires are also gravitating towards town houses. These are not the classic century-old brownstones lining leafy Upper East Side or West Village blocks, but rather new-build “mansions” typically attached to larger luxury developments with comprehensive services and amenities. Intended mainly for families, town houses offer benefits to both developers and buyers. For the former, they create “a diversity of units that can help a project appeal to the broadest base of buyers,” says architect Matthew D Berman, whose Workshop/APD business partner, Andrew D Kotchen, is designing residences at The Printing House in the West Village. “And buyers enjoy the space and privacy of their own home without the sense of isolation that often comes with it – which is increasingly important as New York becomes more international.”
The town house trend is not entirely new – the West Village’s Superior Ink featured seven three-and four-storey homes when occupancy began in 2009. A neo-Georgian-styled unit was bought by Louis Vuitton designer Marc Jacobs for $10.5m, and a final, 4,865sq ft town house is still available for $14m. Now, a handful of similarly designed schemes is entering the market in Manhattan’s most desirable neighbourhoods. Close to Superior Ink is 150 Charles Street – a recently sold-out development with 91 homes, including 10 maisonettes that all have private entrances and, in many cases, their own garage. Units at the 16-storey building – which features a 75ft pool, 3,000sq ft gym, landscaped courtyard garden and panoramic Hudson River views – retailed from $3m, rising to between $8.5m and $12m for the maisonettes. Directly across the street is the aforementioned Printing House, mostly consisting of lofts (from $1,775,000), but where Berman’s firm is also building maisonettes and town houses.
In NoHo, three late-19th-century industrial buildings are being converted into The Schumacher, with a mix of lofts, penthouses and four three and four-bedroom mansions, in which the lowest level could be configured as a wine cellar, home cinema or bijou swimming pool. The mansions are sized from 2,500 to 4,500sq ft, priced between $6.75m and $11m, and are partially illuminated by an enclosed central courtyard garden. Three of the mansions have sold, two of them to a prominent New York-based billionaire art dealer and collector.
Far larger (or pricier) town houses have also entered the market – including the 5,900sq ft East Mansion and 9,600sq ft West Mansion at The Abingdon in the West Village, which sold for $13.2m and $23.4m respectively. On East 61st Street, The Carlton House is a 68-unit co-operative scheme run along condominium lines and anchored at ground level by a new-build, five-floor, 9,742sq ft town house priced – like the building’s 8,743sq ft penthouse – at $65m. At 18 Gramercy Park (designed by Superior Ink and 15 Central Park West architect Robert AM Stern), there’s a 3,750sq ft duplex maisonette costing $9.53m. And finally, over in Tribeca, 7 Harrison Street – a redbrick former warehouse punctuated by Palladian arches – is being converted into 12 condominiums, including a town house with a private entrance and garden. Pricing will be announced later this year, with buyers – as with the rest of Downtown – expected to be mostly from New York.
In fact, 7 Harrison Street is one of several new projects now being built in Tribeca after nearly half a decade of development dormancy. The most architecturally ambitious of them is 56 Leonard, a 60-floor tower designed by Pritzker Prize-winning duo Herzog & de Meuron as a series of translucent cantilevered boxes footed by a gleaming Anish Kapoor sculpture. Its 145 apartments came briefly onto the market in 2008, but sales were derailed by the financial crisis. This March, however, developer Izak Senbahar relisted it at prices almost 20 per cent above 2008 levels. He says that the 820ft-high building is 80 per cent gone, with sales totalling $900m. A 7,800sq ft duplex sold for $47m in June, a record price for a condominium south of Midtown Manhattan, and the last apartment on the market, a 5,489sq ft penthouse, is still available for $31m.
With its “brand-name” architects and towering design, 56 Leonard exemplifies the most conspicuous target of Manhattan’s billionaire buyers: ultra-luxurious residential skyscrapers. Two aforementioned Midtown projects currently dominate this sector – architect Christian de Portzamparc’s 94-condominium One57 across from Carnegie Hall, and the 115-unit 432 Park Avenue between East 56th and 57th Streets, designed by Rafael Viñoly. While differing in amenities and aesthetics, the towers are emblems of what Sotheby’s Field calls “the best of brand New York”. Their views stretch from Central Park to the Hudson and beyond; they are close to Manhattan’s commercial, cultural and retail cores; and each one upon completion – One57 in mid-2014 and 432 Park Avenue in 2015 – will become New York’s tallest residential building (the tallest in the hemisphere in the case of the 1,396ft 432 Park Avenue). Perhaps most crucially, the apartments will be delivered fully – and meticulously – finished. Unlike a decade ago, when top-end projects such as Richard Meier’s Perry Street Towers arrived as empty shells, “buyers today want their apartments completely liveable from day one”, says Corcoran’s Liebman. “They are now more sophisticated, more international and have little interest in ripping out walls or bringing in their own architects.”
As with One Hyde Park, both 432 Park Avenue and One57 are backed by seasoned, high-profile developers as wealthy and discerning as many of their buyers: Macklowe Properties’ Harry B Macklowe (working in conjunction with CIM Group) at the former and Gary Barnett of Extell Development Company at the latter. For Macklowe (a noted art and architecture enthusiast), Viñoly’s grid-like arrangement of 10ft by 10ft windows is “seductive and classical – a wonderfully pure example of architecture inspired somewhat by Austrian Secessionist architect Josef Hoffmann”. Viñoly’s design stands in sharp contrast to One57’s darkly fluid, glass-panelled façade.
Another key difference is that One57 will include – and be fully serviced by – a flagship Park Hyatt hotel, while 432 Park Avenue is residential only, though with a private restaurant, spa, screening room and concierges. Macklowe says that this set-up is a nod “to privacy and exclusivity. 432 Park Avenue is totally dedicated to its residents.” And with 70 per cent of the building’s buyers coming from the US, including many already based in Manhattan, it makes sense that it has forgone the hotel.
But for One57 buyer Michael Holtz, the Park Hyatt proved key. “There is a desire today to replicate the lifestyle experienced when travelling,” says the owner of upmarket travel agency Smart Flyer, who purchased a three-bedroom, park-facing unit earlier this year. With half of One57’s buyers based abroad, the hotel component is likely to hold equal appeal with them. Indeed, four blocks south, on West 53rd Street, the 114-room, 61-condo Baccarat Hotel & Residences is being constructed and will be capped by a $60m five-bedroom penthouse.
As New York’s new billionaire buyers push prime-property figures close to that magical $100m mark, real-estate insiders are quietly wondering whether these prices can be sustained. Already, One57 developer Extell is working on a mixed-use tower poised to top 1,500ft in height – and exceed its predecessor’s prices. But Macklowe is adamant that 432 Park Avenue, despite its $7m entry point (rising to $95m), represents value: “The ceiling heights, finishings and unusual windows are like works of art,” he says.
Hyperbole aside, Macklowe may not be entirely off base, notes London-based Liam Bailey, head of residential research at estate agent Knight Frank. New York, he explains, now rivals London as a key destination for global wealth and the global wealthy, “but prime New York property prices remain below London levels” – roughly $2,200 per square foot in New York, compared with $4,300 in London and more than $5,000 in Hong Kong. “As an ever-widening pool of people acquires ever-widening wealth, there’s no reason to think New York’s prime-property prices couldn’t rise even further.”
