A $169 Million Penthouse; Herzog & de Meuron’s First Residential Building in the U.K.

432 Park Avenue Penthouse Lists for $169 Million

The 96th-floor penthouse of 432 Park Avenue has hit the market after reports surfaced in early July that the residence would be listed for $169 million. The seller is Saudi property developer Fawaz Alhokair, who purchased the 8,255-square-foot residence for $87.7 million in 2016. The residence is being sold with its Bentley, Fendi, and Hermes furnishings as well as its art. 

The penthouse includes six bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms (including a primary suite with dual bathrooms), a library with a fireplace, and a great room that spans 93 feet along Park Avenue. Central Park views are framed by the residence’s 10-by-10-foot windows throughout the dining area, eat-in kitchen, and primary bedroom. If the penthouse sells at its $169 million ask, it would create a new citywide record at $20,472 per square foot.

See One Park Drive, Herzog & de Meuron’s First U.K. Residential Building

Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron are nearing completion on London’s One Park Drive at Canary Wharf, the firm’s first residential tower in the United Kingdom. The 484-residence building takes a distinct circular shape that Brian De’ath, director of residential sales for developer Canary Wharf Group, said helps to set the building apart from its commercial neighbors. “It was very clear that this would need to be a signature building,” De’ath told Dezeen. “It stands at the head of the dock in a very prominent position and is the first building you see as you cross the bridge into the Wood Wharf development.”

The 58-story building was designed by the firm from the inside out, and includes four distinct portions, which can be seen from the exterior. The lowest two floors house a lobby, a movie theater, a gym, and a swimming pool. Above that are nine floors of loft-style apartments with curved external balconies. Smaller apartments with balconies occupy the 22 floors above, and the building is topped off by 25 floors of larger apartments with double-height terraces. Residences listed on the One Park Drive website range from £850,000 (around $1.18 million) for a 772-square-foot one-bedroom to £1,862,500 (around $2.59 million) for a 1,472-square-foot three-bedroom apartment.

Facebook Will Expand Menlo Park Presence With Willow Village Community

Facebook has been honing plans for a new mixed-use development that will include 1,729 mixed-income apartments, a grocery store, cafes, a 193-room hotel, and more near its Menlo Park campus. Willow Village, as it will be known, will cover 1.6 million square feet that is currently occupied by an industrial warehouse complex and act as a bridge between the existing Facebook campus and the city of Menlo Park. SFGate points out that the plan bears likeness to the “company towns” of yore, but Facebook rejects the label, maintaining the residential units will be open to the public.

“Listening, understanding, and delivering the features that our neighbors most want has been central to our process at Willow Village,” Mike Ghielmetti, president of Oakland-based Signature Development Group, the company leading the project along with Facebook, told SFGate. “Balancing jobs and housing, delivering the grocery store, helping manage traffic impacts, providing affordable housing, especially for our seniors, these were the priorities that our neighbors and Menlo Park leaders directly asked us to solve.”

Miami-Dade Saw Record-Breaking Sales Pace in June

The Miami Herald reports that June was a record-breaking month for Miami-Dade County real estate, with the highest number of residential sales in a single month in three decades. The county saw 4,057 sales of condos and single-family homes in June, according to the latest Miami Realtors Association report. Sales increased more than 114% year-over-year, with condos seeing a larger increase in sales than single-family homes. The median sales price of condos in the county rose by nearly 30%, to $340,000, from June 2020 to June 2021. Of the county’s sales, 40.5% were cash buyers.

“The market is still strong due to the continual low-interest rate environment,” Mike Pappas, CEO of South Florida real estate group Keyes Company, told the Herald. “The majority of the movement is from the tri-county area, but also seeing a strong demand from the NE along with Illinois and California.”

This Year’s Chicago Architecture Biennial Targets Underused Urban Space

The Chicago Architecture Biennial, the largest architecture and design exhibition in North America, will take place from Sept. 17 through Dec. 18. Instead of being held at its usual Chicago Cultural Center location, the event will be staged at 10 sites and two exhibition spaces across the city. This year’s theme of The Available City is intended to highlight the potential of vacant urban areas in Chicago as collective spaces designed with community input. The biennial will display 18 projects developed by 68 contributors who reimagined Chicago’s underused spaces as places for community advancement. The festival’s cultural partners this year include SOM, Studio Gang, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.