Luxury Apartments Take Amenities to New Heights

With new luxury condominiums going up all around the city, the fusion of the luxury apartment and private club seems to be a favored way for developers to distinguish their properties.Three new Manhattan developments, going up in highly commercial neighborhoods not known for their exemplary services, are piling on the residential amenities in gluttonous fashion.The 106-unit Cipriani Club Residences at 55 Wall St. is a case in point. Its fully furnished apartments offer access to a private club, which includes a 20,000-volume library with a full-time librarian, a movie theater showing current releases, an “Old World” barber shop, a spa, a full-time masseuse, a wine cellar, a billiards room, and a private dining room serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner.Its developer, Steven Witkoff, in conjunction with restaurateur Guiseppe Cipriani, renovated and refitted the existing Beaux Arts building, which is more than 160 years old.Mr. Witkoff told The New York Sun the development would be the first to incorporate an exclusive club and restaurant into a residential development. “In the old New York, there used to be these old private clubs,” he said. “Now they will be in your building.“Our services are at least as broad if not broader than the array of services offered at Soho House,” Mr. Witkoff said. “This is, right now, a very exclusive club for the 106 residences and maybe just a few outsiders. For the few outsiders, there will be a very, very stiff membership fee.”Mr. Witkoff said he is seeking to collaborate with Mr. Cipriani on other similar projects in Manhattan.Shaun Osher of Core Group Marketing, a firm that specializes in marketing new developments, cautioned developers that amenities must logically fit the profile of the neighborhood and buyer. He said New York buyers are sophisticated and discriminating, and they refuse to pay extra for gimmicky amenities.“Everyone is trying to outdo the next person. There is a lot of product coming out on the market,” Mr. Osher said. “Developers are trying to get the highest price per square foot by having more amenities than any one else.”He added, “A lot of the stuff is frivolous, it’s overkill.”Mr. Osher noted that New York’s first and more durable residential amenity – the doorman – still commands $3,000 a square foot in older buildings on Park and Fifth avenues, without the bells and whistles.Near Times Square, two new large residential developments are offering country club-like amenities.Jeffrey Katz, the developer of 1600 Broadway, a luxury condominium being constructed in Times Square, said, “We had to design the apartments and the amenities with an eye to do something that nobody has done before.”The building’s fourth-floor club level will contain a fitness center, bar, entertainment lounge, and a virtual golf course where a foursome can play 18-holes. The outside is a roof deck landscaped with trees and rolling grassy hills.“You can hang out on a blanket on the lawn at night, in the middle of all the glimmer and excitement that’s Times Square,” Mr. Katz said.Mr. Katz said there was no limit to the amount of amenities a developer can offer “as long as you are not burdening the maintenance on these buildings.”The Orion, a 551-unit apartment building rising on 42nd Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues, will contain three full floors of residential amenities.The condominium, developed by Extell, boasts an indoor pool, three separate sun decks including “a sunset loggia” looking west across the Hudson River, a breakfast cafe serving egg-white omelets, a full-floor fitness center with instructors, yoga classes, and a nutritionist. Residents can reserve a screening room, and a 24-hour concierge can arrange housekeeping, theater tickets, and get the cable installation.Daniel Cordeiro of the Corcoran Group, which is marketing the building, said the amenities were an attempt to internalize a club atmosphere and create a community within the hustle and bustle of midtown.In an 800-square-foot one-bedroom apartment, Mr. Cordeiro said, “It helps to know you have 20,000 square feet downstairs. You have access to more impressive things.”He said that by offering services in-house, the development could avoid “a stigma that there are not many residential amenities in Times Square.“We can control the quality of everything we are doing, and not have to rely on the cafe down the street or the gym down the block,” Mr. Cordeiro said.The president of a real estate publishing company, Yale Robbins, said that the bulk of luxury condominiums in the city’s development pipeline was probably not the driving force behind the lavish extras. Mr. Robbins said that the new breed of fully loaded apartment buildings are being developed for a very basic reason: Developers can afford them.“[The developers] are trying to establish the brand name. With the kind of dollars they are achieving for prices, they can do a lot. They have pretty high margins,” Mr. Robbins said. “They are catering to an affluent [buyer] that is spending a lot of money. So how do you cater to that audience?”Mr. Robbins added that if the market for luxury condos slows, “the more expensive deals in the future may have less to give away.”

Luxury Apartments Take Amenities to New Heights

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