New York’s Wealthiest All Want to Live Downtown Now

Nearly a decade ago, financier Harsh Padia and his wife, Purvi Padia, spent $29.1 million for an apartment in Manhattan’s West Village, paying top dollar for a duplex at the 150 Charles Street condominium. In March of this year, they sold the unit for $60 million, more than twice what they paid and a record figure for downtown Manhattan.

The buyer’s identity was telling: He works at Jane Street Capital, a quant trading firm that recently expanded its headquarters at nearby 250 Vesey Street in Battery Park City, according to people familiar with the deal. 

A seismic shift is taking place in downtown Manhattan. Traditionally, the city’s most expensive real estate has been uptown, on Billionaires’ Row, Central Park West and the Upper East Side. But with a spate of big-ticket sales and listings below 14th Street, downtown prices are starting to rival the city’s most expensive uptown enclaves. As finance and tech firms have migrated downtown—alongside new retail, parks, and cultural institutions—a new wave of luxury condo development along the West Side Highway is luring wealthy buyers to neighborhoods like the West Village, Tribeca and Chelsea. 

“There’s a whole bunch of very wealthy people working in the vicinity, meaning they often want to live in the vicinity,” said real-estate agent Clayton Orrigo of Compass. “They’re buying up the West Side Highway.” 

“These are new levels that we’ve never seen before,” said Orrigo, who has the listing for Weinreb’s apartment.

Downtown has long drawn wealthy buyers, with condominiums like 150 Charles and 70 Vestry fetching high prices. But in recent years, office and retail development in the Meatpacking District and Hudson Yards has led financial and tech firms to opt for office space downtown, bringing even more deep-pocketed buyers with them. 

Companies like Deloitte, StubHub and Jane Street Capital have signed major leases at Hudson Yards and near the World Trade Center.

In February, Google opened its newest Manhattan office space at the old St. John’s Terminal on Washington Street in Hudson Square. “It’s one of the wealthiest corporations on the planet,” said Leonard Steinberg of Compass. “That changes the profile of the neighborhood.”

Zaitzeff was part of the sales team at 70 Vestry when it launched sales in 2016, and he still gets near-weekly phone calls asking if he has anything in the 47-unit building. “I have clients in the building who can basically name their price,” he said, but most aren’t motivated to leave. “You’re not getting into that building.”

New downtown condominiums are angling for wealthy buyers with larger units than the area has seen in the past, and with luxe amenities comparable to those on Billionaires’ Row.

“In the past, you just couldn’t get that scale—whether a townhouse or apartment,” Steinberg said, noting that buyers have an “obsession with new” and will pay a premium to avoid renovating. “It really is an arms race in luxury to out-luxe your neighbor.”

There are only 14 units at 140 Jane, whose amenities include automated parking, a pool, gym, sauna, porte-cochere and even a private park, said Aurora’s Bobby Cayre. As of mid-May, 12 units had been sold since sales launched in August 2024. “We didn’t have a sales gallery, to be honest with you,” Cayre said. “We were selling off of Zoom meetings.”

With 112 units, 80 Clarkson is one of the largest of the new projects. The building, located adjacent to Google’s new outpost at St. John’s Terminal, was initially priced from $6.755 million for a two-bedroom unit to $63 million for a five-bedroom. Since February, the developer has raised prices four times, and the $75 million residence—which will measure about 7,368 square feet with five bedrooms—was released in May. Amenities include a private restaurant, pool and library. Residents also have the option of buying private wine cellars. The cost? Up to $1 million each.