Zeckendorf locks in $75M in construction financing for 520 Park Avenue

Dublin-based Talos Capital loaned Zeckendorf Development $75 million for its luxury condo development at 520 Park Avenue, records filed with the city Wednesday show.

The loan is part of a financing package issued to Zeckendorf starting with a $50 million loan in 2014, when the developer announced it would build a 54-story skyscraper designed by the architect Robert A.M. Stern at the corner of East 60th Street and Park Avenue.

In May, Arthur Zeckendorf told The Real Deal that “banks are at their limits with condo loans,” but it looks like the Zeckendorfs can get a little something here and there to finance what has no doubt been an exorbitantly expensive build: the total targeted sellout for 520 Park Avenue‘s 32 condos is $1.25 billion. The Zeckendorfs have so far borrowed only $125 million total from Talos to construct the tower, which by January had nearly topped out.

In 2014, the Zeckendorfs reportedly closed on $450 million in financing from the United Kingdom’s Children’s Investment Fund to build the 520 Park Avenue, but evidence of such a transaction has never been publicly recorded. The Zeckendorfs brought in the Nasser Family as well as Eyal Ofer and Samuel Kellner’s Global Holdings as partners on the project.

The Talos debt deal was first reported by the Commercial Observer.

When the Zeckendorfs first debuted project plans, they announced that 520 Park Avenue would offer a $130 million penthouse. Floor plans for the top-floor triplex were released in 2015. If it ever sells (and before the $250 million unit at Vornado Realty Trust’s 220 Central Park South), it would mark the most expensive condo sale in city history by nearly $30 million dollars, smashing the previous record of $100.5 million at Gary Barnett’s One57.

Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect the nature of the Talos debt package, which began sequencing in 2014.