The owner of the last penthouse to sell at 520 Park Avenue is having buyer’s remorse.
The buyer, identified as Park Ave. Condo LLC, filed a lawsuit against the property’s developers, William Lie Zeckendorf and Arthur Zeckendorf, after purchasing Unit DP-PH-63 for $78.9 million in November.
The buyer claimed that the Zeckendorfs knew of an impending skyscraper that was “all but certain to ruin the Penthouse’s unobstructed Central Park view, the unit’s defining feature.”
The offending skyscraper comes from Extell Development’s Gary Barnett, who bought three 60th Street lots from Solil Management for $103 million earlier this month. The assemblage is next to 655 Madison Avenue, where Extell had already planned a 62-unit residential tower and commercial space.
The buyer alleges in the complaint that Extell and Solil had made “secret plans” to develop a skyscraper that covers the entire assemblage and “will tower over 520 Park Avenue.”
The buyer alleged that the Zeckendorfs were privy to this non-public information because of “their status as part of a small circle of New York City real estate insiders,” and did not disclose it because of their desperation to offload the penthouse at a good price.
The complaint cites the Zeckendorfs’ failed efforts to sell a former triplex in the building — which was later subdivided into the duplex — for $130 million, and the years the resulting duplex spent on the market as the motivation to sell the penthouse at the maximum possible price.
The complaint also references the Zeckendorfs’ lawsuit against Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno, who backed out of buying a unit at 520 Park Avenue, as evidence of the developers’ “desperation” to sell other units in the building.
The offering plan does disclose that west-facing windows on apartments, including the original triplex, are “considered amenities that can potentially be lost,” and also includes a general disclosure that “no representation is made that future construction in the neighborhood surrounding the Property will not result in obstruction of views.”
But the buyer claimed that none of the 26 amendments to the plan included a disclosure suggesting the west-facing windows faced a “specific, existing risk of obstruction.”
The buyer is suing the Zeckendorfs for fraud and is seeking to rescind the sale, in addition to any other potential damages.
Attorneys for the Zeckendorfs in a statement dismissed the complaint.
“Our clients reject these baseless allegations as a shameless attempt to renegotiate a binding agreement,” said attorneys Terrence Oved and Darren Oved. “They fully expect the court will see this action for what it is — a transparent case of buyer’s remorse masquerading as a complaint — and readily dismiss it.”
Lawyers for the buyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Zeckendorfs broke ground on 520 Park Avenue in 2014. The penthouse represented the final sponsor sale in the building, which had a total sales volume from its 35 full residences of $1.05 billion, according to a previous TRD analysis of public records.
According to the complaint, the Zeckendorfs originally wanted to score the city’s first $100 million sale with the triplex, but lost out on the race after the penthouse at 157 West 57th Street sold for $100.5 million in 2015.
The penthouse at 520 Park Avenue was the fourth-priciest closing last year.
The building has four other duplex penthouses, all of which sold for over $60 million. In 2018, vacuum cleaner mogul and British billionaire James Dyson bought a 60th-floor duplex penthouse for $73.8 million. Billionaire restaurateur Frank Fertitta and billionaire investment banker Ken Moelis also own penthouses in the building.
This article has been updated with a statement from the lawyers for the Zeckendorfs.
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Zeckendorfs’ final penthouse at 520 Park Avenue sells for $79M
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