An NBA owner is angling for a big flip on the High Line.
Wes Edens, who has co-owned the Milwaukee Bucks for more than a decade, has listed his triplex penthouse condo on West 28th Street for a hefty $35 million, according to an ad that appeared Thursday.
The billionaire ex-Wall Street executive and major sports team investor paid $20.2 million for the 6,900-square-foot spread in 2020, based on the city register, and so could bank a nearly 75% profit on a deal.
But the five-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bath home, which offers a living room with 20-foot ceilings and a gas fireplace, a primary suite with a walk-in closet and a balcony, and a landscaped roof deck with a hot tub, has struggled to find takers before.
Indeed, it took five years of marketing by the condo’s developer, The Related Cos., to sell the penthouse to Edens, despite several sizable price cuts over that time frame. Related initially asked $50 million for the unit, which crowns its building, an 11-story, 40-unit development in West Chelsea, before unloading it to Edens for less than half the desired amount, according to StreetEasy data.
Along the same lines, Related initially planned to reap $408 million in sales at the condo, a curvaceous and almost spaceshiplike structure designed by late architect Zaha Hadid, according to state offering plan filings. But the developer, which recently scrapped a casino plan for its nearby Hudson Yards megaproject, later downwardly adjusted those expectations to a projection of $392 million, the filings show.
With windows almost close enough for a High Line park visitor to touch, the condo near 10th Avenue also offers an automated parking garage, a 75-foot-long indoor pool and an IMAX theater.
Edens, a former BlackRock executive who co-founded asset management firm Fortress Investment Group in 1998, snapped up the Bucks in 2014 with billionaire Marc Lasry, the CEO of Avenue Capital Group and billionaire Jamie Dinan, the founder of hedge fund York Capital Management, for $550 million.
Since then the team has made it to the post-season nine out of 10 times and won it all in 2021 with a 4-2 series victory over the Phoenix Suns for the Bucks’ first NBA championship since 1971. Lasry offloaded his stake two years ago to Cleveland Browns’ majority owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam in a deal that reportedly valued the Bucks at $3.5 billion.
Edens appears bullish on European soccer as well. His company V Sports, co-founded seven years ago, owns Aston Villa, an on-an-upswing Birmingham, England-area club, as well as teams in Spain and Portugal. On a different track, he also operates the U.S.’ only privately owned intercity railroad, the Brightline, a 235-mile-long Florida route between Miami and Orlando.
Clayton Orrigo, a Compass agent marketing the apartment, declined to comment by press time.
