535 West End Avenue[1] is an apartment building on West End Avenue at 86th Street (Manhattan) in Upper Westside neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by Lucien Lagrange Architects, the building has 22 half and full floor residences, ranging from 3,744 to 8,451 square feet (785.1 m2). With an average sales price of over US$12 million per residence (average sales price per square foot of about $2,000), the building has on average the most expensive apartment residences in New York city.[2]
The construction started in 2008 during the global late-2000s recession and was completed in 2010. The building is compared to a much larger 15 Central Park West in the same Upper Westside neigborhood but saw its initial two apartment listings sell at a discounted 40% and 25% of the listing prices respectively because of the recession. The demand picked up in the subsequent purchases according to official New York City records that show record sales prices for the rest of the apartment residences in the building in 2010. Wealthy hedge fund managers were reported to be purchasing residences in the building. As of February 2011, all but one of the apartments in the building for sale were sold, with only one of the residences still available on the market.[3]