Gary Barnett

“Eh.” 

That’s how Gary Barnet of Extell Development described 2022. 

But you know you’ve made it when landing a $425 million construction loan in a terrible lending market is the mark of an OK year. 

Extell landed that hefty loan for a medical building on the Upper East Side, which signed the Hospital for Special Surgery as an anchor tenant, taking 196,000 square feet in a 32-year lease. 

The company also secured a $500 million inventory loan for its trophy condo project, the Central Park Tower supertall, from JPMorgan Chase, replacing a previous mezzanine loan that was set to mature. The condo inventory loan, backed by 87 unsold units, shows that, well, there’s still condo inventory — which is Extell’s bread and very luxurious butter. 

There were 81 units sold out of 179 at the Billionaires Row tower as of March for a total of $1.4 billion, shy of the original $4 billion total projected. But Barnett has previously said he was no longer aiming for that sellout — which would have been the highest ever in the city.

Sales trucked along as well at the company’s other condo projects: Brooklyn Point, One Manhattan Square and The Kent on the Upper East Side. “Across the board, sales have been steady even coming into this year,” said Barnett. “So that’s the good news.”

The Kent in particular saw sales perk up after the company cut prices. “I have expensive units,” said Barnett. “People weren’t able to buy for $8, $9, $10 million; they can buy a co-op on Park Avenue for that. So we lowered our prices.”

The bad news is that the loss of the 421a development incentive, which expired in June 2022, and the deteriorating lending landscape are going to be real challenges for building in New York—for everyone. “A lot of people are going to lose their jobs. It’s going to get harder to build,” Barnett predicted. “At the end of the day, the construction industry is a very important industry and provides hundreds or thousands of good jobs. If that shrinks, what will replace it?”

Barnett also said it will take a while for prices to get to a place where there are any real opportunities. 

“Overall 2022 was a good year,” Barnett said, closing out. “It wasn’t rocket fuel — which we love.”