The duplex penthouse atop 1122 Madison Avenue, the new William Sofield-designed condominium between East 83rd and 84th Streets, has gone into contract at $89.5 million — a number that sets a new Upper East Side neighborhood record both for the highest sale price and the highest price per square foot ever recorded for a UES condominium. The contract was reported by The Real Deal, Crain’s New York Business, Robb Report, and the East Side Feed neighborhood publication, with the Cathy Franklin Team at The Corcoran Group handling the listing for developer Legion Investment Group and equity partner Nahla Capital.
The Penthouse
The duplex occupies the building’s top two floors with a rooftop terrace above. It carries seven bedrooms, a double-height great room, and roughly 2,000 square feet of private outdoor space across the terrace and balcony lines. Views span Central Park to the west, the Metropolitan Museum rooftop and surrounding historic district directly across, and the Midtown skyline to the south. Completion and occupancy are scheduled for fall 2027.
The building’s 18 launched units are now reported under contract for a combined total of more than $360 million, an average of more than $5,400 per square foot — a number that puts 1122 Madison Avenue’s pricing band into direct comp territory with the Billionaires’ Row supertalls and the Upper East Side’s Aman Residences, which had previously held the corridor’s per-foot ceiling.
What the Sale Says
1122 Madison’s contract activity matters to the Diamond District because the Upper East Side is the single densest residential corridor for the high-jewelry buyer in Manhattan. The corridor that runs from 57th Street up to 86th Street between Fifth and Park houses the largest concentration of seven- and eight-figure single-owner wealth in the city, and Madison Avenue between 60th and 86th is the retail spine that serves it. Kwiat-Fred Leighton’s new 713 Madison townhouse, Cartier’s 653 Fifth flagship at 56th Street, Van Cleef & Arpels’ 744 Fifth, and the Sotheby’s Roman & Williams restaurant at the Breuer Building anchor that retail spine on the high-jewelry side. A penthouse contract clearing at $5,400 per foot in the geographic heart of that spine confirms the floor under signed-piece consignment intake from the corridor’s residents.
The Per-Foot Comp Set
For comp work, $89.5 million on a duplex of approximately 16,500 square feet works back to roughly $5,420 per square foot, the new Upper East Side condominium record by a meaningful margin. The prior neighborhood ceiling on a per-foot basis had been set by the Aman New York Residences at Crown Building (technically 57th Street and within the broader Billionaires’ Row print), and 1122 Madison’s number now reframes any prewar-cooperative comp work above 72nd Street. The structural read for Diamond District lenders is straightforward: the buyer pool that supports $5,400-per-foot pricing on the UES is the same buyer pool that walks into 47th Street with signed pieces seeking liquidity, and that pool’s depth is expanding rather than contracting.
The Broader Manhattan Print
The 1122 Madison signing sits inside a Manhattan luxury contract cycle that Olshan Realty’s most recent monthly tabulation framed as a ten-month high, with 133 contracts signed for apartments priced at $4 million or more between April 14 and May 10. That cycle is running against a Mother’s Day jewelry print that the NRF measured at a record $7.5 billion for the category in 2026, and a Manhattan retail leasing market that closed Coach’s 13,200-square-foot Fifth Avenue commitment at 645 Fifth Avenue on May 25. Read end to end, the Upper East Side condominium tape, the Madison Avenue jewelry retail tape, and the Diamond District signed-piece tape are now moving in the same direction.
From the Borro desk: The New York May 2026 marquee fortnight printed at $1.8 billion across three houses — the corridor’s wealth concentration is now the dominant variable in any per-foot UES comp.
Related coverage: Coach Signs a 13,200-Square-Foot Lease at 645 Fifth Avenue | Madison Avenue Absorbs a Dozen Major Luxury Openings Since January
