Everything is a story at Walker Tower – the prices, the residences, and the headlines.
The building was developed by JDS Development Group and is located in Chelsea at 212 West 18th Street.
Contracts were signed between Q2-2012 and Q4-2014 when the average price per square foot for a Chelsea condo was $1,511. But prices within the tower were more typical of Central Park, averaging $3,474 price per square foot and $11.5M, and layouts more closely resembled Tribeca lofts, offering, on average, an unprecedented 3,060 square feet of living space. The sponsor realized the demand for super-sized apartments and delivered many of the units as combinations.
At $51M, Penthouse #1 became the most expensive condo ever sold Downtown. Although that 2013 deal has since been eclipsed by The Getty’s penthouse for $59M and Jeff Bezos’ $119M penthouse assemblage at 212 Fifth Avenue, the media attention that was given to those larger sales pales in comparison to Walker Tower’s news cycle when the penthouse – purchased with illegal funds from the $4.5B Malaysian corruption, bribery, and embezzlement scheme known as the 1MDB scandal – was seized by the United States Marshals Service and sold in 2020 for $18.25M, a 64% discount.
Marketproof research shows that despite the opportunity to make a significant profit upon resale – the average price appreciation for the five most recent resales was 22% – nearly half of the original buyers still own their residences, and the average ownership period is over seven years.
See Walker Tower’s current listings here >>
Images courtesy of JDS Development Group.
