Gary Barnett

When you build the world’s tallest condo tower, and the most expensive one in the world’s financial capital, its success or failure will define your legacy.

That’s the case with developer Gary Barnett, whose Extell Development neared completion of its 1,550-foot-tall Central Park Tower this year. The 95-story tower on Billionaires’ Row includes 179 ultra-luxury condos, 20 of which were supposed to fetch more than $50 million each, with a seven-story Nordstrom at its base.

That itself is a stunning accomplishment, one that cost $3.1 billion to pull off, but it could turn out to be the developer’s albatross, as Barnett attempts to sell the condos in a changed city. The property was initially expected to bring in $4.9 billion. That number has been revised down as luxury condo prices, already falling, continued to drop through the pandemic. That, coupled with rising financial costs, will cut into the profits.

But sales at the tower have begun, and 15 units went to contract during the first quarter of this year, part of $260 million total in contracts across Extell’s condo portfolio over the quarter. That includes sales at the 72-story One Manhattan Square in Two Bridges and the newly completed Brooklyn Point in Downtown Brooklyn.

Throughout 2020, Extell also sold six units at its other Billionaires’ Row tower, One57, which was completed in 2014 and is now 90 percent sold. That being said, a unit at One57 resold for half its initial price this year, too.

On the financing front, Extell closed on a $380 million mezzanine loan for Central Park Tower and renegotiated the terms with its senior lender there, JPMorgan Chase. It also nabbed a $190 million condo inventory loan at The Kent in Brooklyn, and sold a property at 500 West 57th for $57 million.

With so many different residential properties, Extell will be busy for a while. For better or for worse, though, all eyes will be on the glowing supertall, designed to be impossible to ignore.—C.G.