By Gretchen Berger
For all you Succession fans, the penthouse apartment of Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) went on the market at 200 Amsterdam Avenue, between 69th and 70th Streets. This 668-foot, luxury, 112-unit condominium tower, the tallest building on the Upper West Side, was completed in 2021 by SJP Properties and Japan’s Mitsui Fudosan America.
The property served as a set for a recent episode in the fourth and final season of HBO’s hit series, showing the fictional home of Roman Roy. “HBO’s Succession team selected the 200 Amsterdam penthouse for its unparalleled 360-degree views and its unique vantage point as the highest residence on Manhattan’s Upper West Side,” the vice president of development and marketing for SJP Properties told Forbes magazine. “This positioning spoke to the power dynamics of the Roy family.”
While the panoramic views of this two-story penthouse, taking up the 49th and 50th floors of the building, are sky high, so is the price — $38 million. The property is 6,347 square feet in size, with eight rooms, including four bedrooms and four-and-a-half baths, as well as a 116-foot terrace running along the entire perimeter of the 49th floor.
200 Amsterdam, like the HBO series, was not without high drama and controversy during its inception and construction. There were yearslong battles and lawsuits to stop its construction. Many neighborhood residents and local officials felt it was way too tall and out of character for the Upper West Side. To achieve its current height and density via New York City’s zoning ordinances, the owners used a patchwork of air-rights acquisitions, which seemed suspect, but turned out to be perfectly legal in our byzantine zoning code.
Notably, in March 2021, the New York State Appellate Division overturned a lower court’s ruling that retroactively applied a draft-zoning rule that would have caused the mostly constructed building to remove 20 of its 52 stories. Despite the drama, since its opening, the building has sold about 66% of the units at prices ranging from about $1.7 million to $21 million according to StreetEasy.
Yes, the. building is way out of character for the Upper West Side, wish the legal suit succeeded in getting the owners to lop off 20 stories or so. And where is the affordable housing that every. politician talks about and nobody does anything about? Nowhere.
Oh yes. The building with the 17 sided zoning lot by which it towers over every other building surrounding it on the UWS. Because of the illegal zoning lot it was opposed by every politician and most residents on the UWS and a Judge actually ruled the developer had to remove 20 floors to be in compliance with the law. Sadly given unlimited money for attorneys developers have in their back pocket they appealed and won.
The high rise of the Roman Empire indeed. The Roman Empire fell didn’t it?
That building will never sell out all units — Like most new construction, there is no “community” in these buildings. It’s transient homeowners and investors.