$70M Condo Sale at 432 Park Ave is Priciest NYC Real Estate Deal This Year

By:  Benyamin Davidsons

The luxury residential building at 432 Park Avenue has a buyer in a new $70 million deal, but it’s not a new buyer.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the buyers in the deal already owns a condo on a lower floor of the 85-floor skyscraper at 57th Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. The buyers of the approximately 10,000-square-foot condo are Yossi Benchetrit, who is the chief procurement and programming officer at the cable television company Altice USA, and his wife Gaëlle Pereira Benchetrit, who is the founder and owner of the cosmetics clinic Clinique des Champs Elysées New York. The couple already owned a four-bedroom, 4,500 square foot condo at the posh address, which they purchased in 2016 for $23.87 million.  The Benchetrits did not reply to request for comment.

The deal, which has not yet closed, is being called the most pricy residential sale in New York City thus far in 2022.  It is also one of the biggest deals since the pandemic hit in March 2020.  The seller in the transaction, as per a source for the WSJ, is a limited partnership named Blessings Investments, which is said to be connected to Meeta Patel, the British Pharmaceutical millionaire.  Ms. Patel and her brother, Amit Patel, made their name and their money running British generic pharmaceutical company, Auden Mckenzie.  The siblings sold the company to Actavis PLC for some $459 million in 2015.  The seller in the transaction is being represented by Ryan Stenta at Douglas Elliman and Carrie Chiang of the Corcoran Group. The buyer is represented by Jason Haber of Compass.

The tower, at 432 Park Ave, houses some of the most expensive residences in NYC, with the median unit selling for tens of millions of dollars.  The building has recently been in the news for a legal battle between the developer and the condo board, over alleged construction defects.

The skyscraper, completed in 2015, was designed by Rafael Viñoly, and SLCE Architects and developed by CIM Group and Harry B. Macklowe Properties.  It is 1,396-feet-tall, earning it the title of sixth tallest building in the USA, and third-tallest residential building in the world.  Amenities for the 125 condos in the building include a 75-foot pool, sauna, whirlpool, fitness center, golf training facilities, private screening room, library, meeting rooms and a private restaurant.