If you know, you know: how to get a showing appointment at 80 Clarkson Street, and who’s calling the shots from the Zeckendorf side on the most talked-about new condo building in the city in years.
“It’s like 15 Central Park West on steroids,” Casa Blanca’s Louis Buckworth, who led sales for the family at 520 Park Avenue, said.
Zeckendorf Development and Atlas Capital Group, the developers, have barely said a word about the two-tower development in the far West Village. No listings are public; they have come out slowly this year. Three-quarters of the units are on the sponsors’ amended offering plan, pointing to a sellout of more than $2 billion. A handful of brokers know to go to the third floor at 435 Hudson Street, and do the equivalent of a special knock. One broker said an ultra-high net worth client was even prohibited from taking pictures.
“They’re being very cagey,” said Donna Olshan, of Olshan Realty, likening the exclusivity playbook to 220 Central Park South, the city’s last condo of this kind.
The sales process is “as tight-lipped as I’ve ever seen,” Marketproof’s Kael Goodman added.
As for the leader from the Zeckendorfs, a source close to the deal told The Real Dealthat Arthur William Zeckendorf III — Artie, 38 — was instrumental in bringing the family in once it was clear that they were Atlas Capital’s top choice to partner and develop one of the most sought-after plots of land in the city.
“I give Artie a lot of credit,” the source said. “This was his deal.” While Artie’s role in construction finance and design aren’t as clear, another source said for the Zeckendorfs, he’s been “managing director, for lack of a better term,” noting, “this was Artie’s responsibility to execute.” Artie and Atlas’ Jeffrey A. Goldberger and Andrew B. Cohen declined interviews, leaving the details of project responsibilities between the partners behind closed doors.
Contracts will eventually show how 80 Clarkson fares with buyers — while luxury West Village new development and resales are doing well, the project is pushing the limits of what buyers will pay for river views downtown. But for the Zeckendorfs, a fourth-generation family that has sought, made and lost its fortunes in New York City for 85 years, the project is about more than the total. If the project meets expectations, Artie and the Zeckendorfs could signal an ability to pull off the big-swinging family’s first planned handoff. The new era would mark the Zeckendorfs’ continued evolution from world-building developers to careful tacticians and brand managers who know when and where to insert themselves to guarantee another win.
History of handovers
Artie is the son of Arthur William Zeckendorf, who, with his brother William Lie Zeckendorf, have run the family business for over 30 years. Their grandfather, William “Big Bill” Zeckendorf, brought the United Nations to town. His son, William Jr., expanded the boundaries of Manhattan’s “good” neighborhoods to the Upper West Side and Union Square.
In the last two decades, Artie’s dad and uncle famously built the ultra-luxury 15 Central Park West and 520 Park Avenue, plugging in what they knew about the growing population of super rich — the family owns Brown Harris Stevens, with all its market data — and massaging the layouts, finishes, services and amenities to push price points ever higher.
“They think of themselves as Hermès, Gary Barnett as Bloomingdale’s, everybody else is Macy’s,” one source familiar with the family said.
For all the glitz, William Sr. and Jr.’s careers ended in disaster. In Zeckendorf, “succession” had come to mean a series of financial messes that had to be cleaned up by one’s sons.
“They think of themselves as Hermès, Gary Barnett as Bloomingdale’s, everybody else is Macy’s.”
Artie’s father and uncle, who are in their 60s, seem to be better set up to pass on the family’s knack for setting price records by maximizing prime city real estate, without the chaos, though they have given no indication of taking a step back.
After their dad left them with almost nothing, Arthur and Will tapped their networks, the real estate lore goes. They had deep connections with the region’s rich from schooling at Taft, St. Paul’s, Tufts University and Harvard Business School. Arthur was usually described as “quiet and thoughtful” and Will as “outgoing and a great salesman,” according to Michael Gross who wrote “House of Outrageous Fortune,” a book about 15 CPW.
Like his father, Artie went to Tufts. He studied international relations and economics, then joined the family firm after graduating in 2009. He got his MBA at Columbia University in 2015, and JPMorgan Chase’s Global Real Assets division hired him. In 2017, he returned to Zeckendorf Development as a partner.
A source who worked with the family on new development projects described Artie as “super smart, super awkward,” like his father. In meetings, the source described him as restless. “He was always getting up, walking around, but in a way that you know he’s still listening.”
Still, he was getting in on deals. Artie’s largest role prior to 80 Clarkson was overseeing a 61-unit condo building at 1289 Lexington Avenue, which the Zeckendorfs bought in a foreclosure auction for $250 million in early 2022.
That summer, Artie approached artist Cynthia Karalla to buy pieces for the building’s elevator landings. He had heard about her from the sales director and hoped to commission photographs for each floor.
“He kept coming back and being like, ‘I just keep thinking about your work,’” she said.
Karalla found Artie “quiet, intuitive and very family-oriented,” she said. (He’s married, two kids.) He commissioned an additional five photos beyond the first order and hosted an exhibit for the artist in the fall of 2022 in one of the building’s then-unoccupied apartments.
At 1289 Lexington, the most expensive penthouse is under $20 million, training wheels compared to 80 Clarkson in terms of ambition and scale. But guiding the West Village condo could pave a smoother path for Artie to someday lead the firm. If sources are right, he was there as the building’s plans and capital stack came together.
“This” — 80 Clarkson — “is obviously his kind of coming out party,” one source said.
“He loves what he does and he knows a lot of aspects of the development business, and it’s in his DNA,“ Brown Harris Stevens CEO Bess Freedman said of the scion. “He was meant for this.”
If Artie does take the reins at some point, perhaps with his sister Jennifer, who has her own residential architecture firm, he might lean on spreadsheets over showmanship, like his father, a pivot that could be coming at exactly the right time, in a high-interest-rate era where lenders are loath to finance the risky vanity projects that have gotten developers — including past Zeckendorfs — into trouble.
For now, he has stayed behind the scenes.
“Here they are, a quintessential kind of New York family, and Artie’s just like, nowhere to be seen,” one source said.
From 570 Washington
to 80 Clarkson
Real estate tycoon Eugene Grant bought the site that includes 80 Clarkson in the 1960s. His property spanned three blocks along the West Side Highway; the whole lot was known as St. John’s Terminal. He entered into a partnership with Westbrook Partners, Atlas Capital and Fortress Investment Group in 2006, selling a minority stake in the building for $207 million and the rest for $250 million in 2013. Two years later, Atlas Capital and Westbrook Partners bought out Fortress in a deal that valued the property at $650 million.
Everyone knew the site had potential, with its 280,000 square feet of unused development rights and 800 feet of frontage on the Hudson River. “It’s like you took the Empire State Building and laid it down on its side,” one investment sales broker said in 2012.
Atlas built in even more upside, via a 2016 deal with the city and Hudson River Park Trust that puzzled together additional air rights from Pier 40 across the street and ensured that HRPT could not transfer additional air rights to neighboring properties, securing river views from the property for the foreseeable future. The arrangement also included inclusionary housing set-asides.
“To control an entire block is the best thing you can do for amassing a building,” Buckworth said.
When the condo market softened in 2017, Atlas and Westbrook sold off the southern portion of the site for $700 million to Oxford Properties, who eventually flipped it to Google for over $2 billion in 2021.
In 2022, Atlas made a deal with Westbrook, who was looking to cash out, to buy the 1.3-acre site. Goldberger and Cohen were also looking for a 50/50 development partner that could help finally turn the dirt across the street from the forthcoming Google campus into something worth the hundreds of millions that had been sunk into it thus far.
Gary Barnett’s Extell, Steve Roth’s Vornado, Access Industries and Miki Naftali’s Naftali Group were among the developers who wanted the site, but Atlas zeroed in on the Zeckendorfs.
Behind the scenes, Artie pitched his family on the deal, quickly winning the approval of his father and uncle, according to a source familiar with the deal.
With Baupost as equity partner, Atlas Capital and the Zeckendorfs bought out 570 Washington Street from Westbrook with a $322 million loan from Blackstone arranged by Newmark’s Jordan Roeschlaub and Dustin Stolly, who’s since moved to Walker & Dunlop, according to a press release from the time.
The capital stack included the largest residential construction loan in the city since the pandemic, a $985 million construction loan from Cale Street Partners and Farallon Capital Management.
It’s unclear exactly what Artie was doing in the rooms where the details for 80 Clarkson were put together (except, maybe, pacing).
The two towers, with their Jenga-like setbacks, retain the classical limestone facade that buyers loved at 15 Central Park West. But the interior designer comes from the office of Thierry Despont, which hadn’t been a Zeckendorf go-to before, though he is behind 220 Central Park South. The design architect, Cookfox, was an Atlas Capital relationship and had been part of the uniform land use review procedure in 2016.
“This is obviously his kind of coming out party.”
The development has just 112 units, plus one for the resident manager. Each is large, with 1,140 square feet the smallest, 30 percent over 4,000 square feet and almost 80 percent with outdoor space. While some floorplans look like they’d be homes on the Upper East Side, Classic Eights ported south, others take cues from downtown’s real converted lofts, with kitchens opened to great rooms.
“I think that there’s a tremendous amount of influence on the interior design that is uptown, but it fits for downtown,” Douglas Elliman’s John Gomes said.
The motor court that critics missed at 520 Park Avenue is back, and all the modern-amenity bells and whistles are here: a fitness center on the first floor, pilates center, swimming pool, hot and cold plunges and spa with sauna and steam rooms. Private wine cellars and parking spaces are for sale.
“Best amenity package downtown,” said Compass’ Clayton Orrigo of the Hudson Advisory Team, whose team has done more than $100 million in sales at the project.
Topping out
Despite Artie’s perceived analytic nature, 80 Clarkson has plenty of risk.
Four of the condos listed are for over $60 million, including a duplex penthouse with 921 square feet of outdoor space for $80 million, or over $11,000 per square foot. (At 520 Park Avenue, a penthouse they hoped to sell at nine figures ultimately fell short.)
This is despite the project having what Compass’ Leonard Steinberg calls a “B-plus” location, on the highway, in a place with more industrial warehouses than West Village-y coffee shops and restaurants.
“If it’s not in the Village, it’s certainly close enough,” he said. “It’s typically not what I would consider prime West Village, but it’s not that far away.”
Still, every foot matters when trying to convince a small pool of buyers to shell out never-before-seen amounts of money in an unproven area. Most buyers who spend that kind of money stay further uptown.
“At any given time, there’s probably about five people looking in that price point downtown,” Serhant’s Peter Zaitzeff, who sold a $60 million unit at 150 Charles Street this year, said.
One source who has been actively looking in the building said that while the (relatively) affordable 420-foot South Tower, with 32 residential units, has nearly sold out, the West Tower, which stands 70 feet taller, has been slower to move its trophy homes.
Still, so far, bringing 112 high-end units to the far, far West Village seems to be paying dividends.
Blackstone has already been paid back in full on its loan, according to a source at the company. And the over-$6,000 blended price-per-square-foot for the building well exceeds the original loan underwriting, another source familiar with the deal said.
“They’ve been outperforming anybody’s wildest dreams of what could have happened there,” Stephen Kliegerman, president of Brown Harris Stevens development marketing, said.
Resale numbers from comparable buildings from the last local development boom could reassure buyers. “You’re seeing numbers in the West Village and you’re seeing numbers along the river that emulate 57th Street — or at least compete,” Zaitzeff said.
You won’t hear the boasts from the Zeckendorfs or Atlas Capital. Buyers’ names haven’t been confirmed yet, although rumors suggest some headline-grabbers.
The team did take a moment to celebrate one achievement: topping out. At the ceremony on a humid mid-June morning, construction workers milled around the concrete slabs that make up the 80 Clarkson courtyard, hitting balls on a rolled-out strip of putting green.
All of the major players from the project were there, one Suffolk construction employee said, including members from Atlas and the design team.
What about Artie? I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never even seen the guy.”
