Eliot Spitzer is reportedly in contract to sell a big Upper East Side rental building to one of the neighborhood’s condo kings.
Miki Naftali agreed to buy the tower at 800 Fifth Avenue for more than $800 million, Bloomberg reported, citing a person with knowledge of the transaction. Not much else is known about the deal, which is allegedly in contract but does not appear to have closed yet.
Spitzer Enterprises and Winter Properties, which co-own the 208-unit property, declined to comment to the publication. Naftali and a spokesperson for Newmark — which had Doug Harmon and Adam Spies advising on the sale — did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Spitzer and Winter started marketing the luxury apartment building two months ago. Sources at the time said the property could be worth as much as $1 billion since it was being marketed as a development opportunity for a high-end condo building.
There’s no word on what Naftali has planned for the site, but considering his history with high-end condo projects in the Upper East Side, the site seems predestined to be converted.
In recent years, Naftali has developed a 62-unit project at 255 East 77th Street, for which the developer scored a $140 million construction loan in December from JPMorgan Chase, as well as an 85-unit building at 200 East 83rd Street, which sparked headlines for a string of pricey penthouse deals after sales began in 2022.
Last month, First Citizens Bank provided the Naftali Group with a $67.5 million construction loan for the developer’s project at 307 Third Avenue, a 69-unit development in Manhattan’s Kips Bay.
Winter and Spitzer sold other major properties over the last few years. In 2015, they sold 730 Fifth Avenue, known as the Crown Building, to Jeff Sutton and General Growth Properties for $1.78 billion. Harmon and Spies, who were at Eastdil Secured then, also advised on that sale.
— Holden Walter-Warner
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