SEE ALSO: Bankrupt Downtown Miami Development Site Hits Market for $175M<\/a><\/p>\n There\u2019s the 600-foot-tall office building expected to cost more than $1 billion underway at 570 Fifth Avenue<\/a>, on which Extell partnered with Ikea<\/a> parent Ingka Investments. It will have an 80,000-square-foot Ikea store at the base.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the proposed 1,200-foot residential tower<\/a> at the former ABC campus at 77 West 66th Street on the Upper West Side, which would dwarf the two tallest buildings in the neighborhood. That project is near Extell\u2019s 70-story condominium at 50 West 66th Street. It\u2019s nearing completion, and a unit on the 47th floor sold for $47 million<\/a> in October, the priciest sale in the neighborhood so far this year.<\/p>\n Can\u2019t forget the 71-story mixed-use tower<\/a> planned at the former Wellington Hotel at 871 Seventh Avenue, or the 1,162-foot-tall residential tower<\/a> at 655 Madison Avenue (where Chanel is in talks to buy the retail space for around $450 million).<\/p>\n And that\u2019s not to mention a Four Seasons-branded condo project in Park City, Utah<\/a>, and a large development in Israel<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are kind of a very deliberate company, in a way, so it takes time for us to accumulate sites, plan them,\u201d Barnett told Commercial Observer. \u201cThings have come together in a good way.\u201d<\/p>\n To help fund all of this, Extell found an unnamed hedge fund partner in September that will pump $1.2 billion to back nine Extell properties, including the ABC campus redevelopment, Bisnow reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n Plus, there\u2019s all the properties Extell has been unloading recently, including the September 2024 sale of the development site at 180 East 125th Street for about $70 million<\/a> and the retail condominium at 171 West 57th Street, which it sold for $25 million<\/a> in February.<\/p>\n \u201cWe decided to sell projects that are not strategic,\u201d Barnett said. \u201cThey\u2019re good projects, but they\u2019re maybe not large enough or they\u2019re not something we think we can maximize the value from. So we\u2019re concentrating really only on the most important projects.\u201d<\/p>\n But all of this is par for the course for anybody who knows Barnett and Extell. Since leaving his job as a diamond dealer in Belgium in the 1990s to step into the world of New York real estate, Barnett has made his mark on the city. He developed major projects, including two far West Side condos called the Rushmore and the Avery, and the W Times Square. Such moves were the prelude for Barnett essentially creating Billionaires\u2019 Row out of thin air (rights) with One57 and Central Park Tower, the world\u2019s tallest residential building.<\/p>\n \u201cGary and his firm build markets,\u201d said Ryan SERHANT<\/a>, reality television star and founder and CEO of residential brokerage Serhant, who has worked with Barnett for years on different projects. \u201cThey definitely don\u2019t follow trends. I think they create them.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout all of this, Barnett had to face waves of opposition from fellow New Yorkers, politicians and local groups fighting to stop his massive projects \u2014 all while Extell kicked off the pandemic with a $206 million loss<\/a>, largely from the result of declining property values. Still, it\u2019s never wise to bet against Barnett coming out on top.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s somebody who\u2019s a little bit like Houdini,\u201d said RXR<\/a> Chairman and CEO Scott Rechler, who provided $463 million in financing<\/a> for Extell\u2019s One Manhattan Square, 555 10th Avenue and 500 East 14th Street in 2016. \u201cHe\u2019ll go into challenging situations, but you count on him to find a way to get through.\u201d<\/p>\n And despite his reputation for massive, glitzy buildings catering to the city\u2019s richest individuals and companies, Barnett himself cuts a very different figure. The 69-year-old Manhattan native and Queens College graduate will show up at the annual Real Estate Board of New York gala in a simple black sweater and sneakers, and he still rocks a flip phone in an age where almost every broker can barely make it through a meeting without checking their smartphone.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s incredibly understated, incredibly focused,\u201d said Serhant. \u201cA lot of people who want to get into real estate development mention him and what he\u2019s been able to do for a long period of time. He\u2019s been through every market cycle. He\u2019s been through the ups, he\u2019s been through the downs, and he stayed consistent. And he still uses a flip phone.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite Serhant \u2014 known for his strong social media presence and willingness to have a camera crew follow his every move \u2014 being an almost yin to Barnett\u2019s yang, the two have struck up an unlikely bond.\u00a0<\/p>\n Serhant\u2019s first-ever deal as a broker came from an Extell building years ago. (He said he was sorely disappointed to learn later that working with other developers was not as easy as working with Extell.) And it came full circle when Serhant struck out on his own to start his namesake brokerage. Barnett gave Serhant\u2019s new company its first assignment: selling the 458 condos in Extell\u2019s Brooklyn Point development. And Extell projects feature heavily in Season 1 of Serhant\u2019s \u201cOwning Manhattan\u201d in 2024 (though Barnett himself never makes an appearance).<\/p>\n \u201cIt was hugely important at that time,\u201d Serhant said about the Brooklyn Point assignment. \u201cI was taking this leap to go do something different, by myself, in the middle of COVID, in the shutdown of New York City, and it meant a lot to me that he would do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Barnett\u2019s also known to have an insatiable desire to learn everything he can about the city\u2019s real estate market, said investment sales broker Robert Knakal, founder and chairman of investment sales firm BKREA.<\/p>\n Knakal, who\u2019s worked with Extell on more than two dozen deals, said he\u2019s brought his famed map<\/a> detailing each parcel in Manhattan below 110th Street to Barnett, who wanted to pore over every deal and potential deal in the market, even if Barnett wasn\u2019t personally involved.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s really a great student of the game,\u201d Knakal said. \u201cHe looks for value, he looks for opportunity, he looks for what could be rather than what is. That\u2019s a great quality, because, in New York, we don\u2019t have rolling pastures of land where you can go down the street and build another one \u2014 you have to be very creative in how you put these things together.\u201d<\/p>\n And Barnett has no problem playing that long creative game. Barnett spent about 15 years assembling all the pieces for the 570 Fifth development, finally closing on the final holdout, a parcel at 576 Fifth Avenue, in March for $175 million<\/a>, even as he had a Plan B to carve out the development without it.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know of anybody else who is so stupid to take such long views with so much risk and hope that at the end things work out,\u201d Barnett said.<\/p>\n But Barnett\u2019s \u201cstupid\u201d decision to hold out on Fifth seems to be anything but. Ingka reportedly invested between $300 million and $500 million<\/a> into the project, and Barnett said it plans to open a \u201cstore of the future\u201d in the base, unlike anything Ikea has tried in the city before.<\/p>\n Jenna Grader, Ingka\u2019s real estate investment manager, said the retailer had for a while wanted a presence on Fifth Avenue and met with the city\u2019s major players before being introduced to Extell. It was the shared vision and values that made Ingka decide to work with Barnett.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it comes to Gary, he has a vision, he dares to do something that other investors don\u2019t, and he does a lot in order to execute his passion,\u201d Grader said. \u201cUnlike some other investors, who sometimes care about only their returns, Gary was truly interested in what we need to be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n Grader said Ikea\u2019s new Fifth Avenue store will be similar to the one<\/a> it opened in London earlier this year. It\u2019s working with Barnett to \u201cimprove that concept\u201d since Ingka is not renovating a historic building in this case, but on constructing a brand-new one.<\/p>\n Aside from locking in Ikea, Extell is reportedly close to finalizing law firm Simpson Thacher as a 700,000-square-foot anchor tenant<\/a> for the building\u2019s office portion.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve given them a crazy good deal, to be honest, because it\u2019s very helpful to have them in on board, day one,\u201d Barnett said. \u201cYou can design the building to suit them, and it helps with financing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Barnett held onto the parcel during the COVID-19 pandemic, when everybody was writing obituaries about the office<\/a> and in-person work, but it\u2019s set to come online in 2028 with the office market in a much different place. More<\/a> and more<\/a> companies are calling their workers back four or five days a week while demand for top-shelf office space continues growing, even as the city faces a dearth of that inventory<\/a>.<\/p>\n While Barnett took a long view at Fifth Avenue, his timeline was much, much shorter at the ABC campus. He said it took Extell \u201c10 minutes\u201d to decide to assemble that site, and then the company \u201caggressively\u201d pursued it.<\/p>\n In 2022, Barnett closed on the $930 million purchase<\/a> of the ABC campus from Silverstein Properties and family office Seven Valleys, and announced plans in the summer to demolish those properties to make way for the skyscraper.<\/p>\n Like some of Extell\u2019s developments, it has faced opposition from some community groups and residents, including \u201cWho\u2019s the Boss?\u201d and \u201cTaxi\u201d star Tony Danza.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t understand why the whole neighborhood isn\u2019t out in the streets and furious about it,\u201d Danza told Curbed earlier this year.<\/a> \u201cIt\u2019s going to impact the neighborhood for probably the next four or five years, and then after that it\u2019ll shade the park and be this ugly glass tower.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Rendering](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/570_5th_Avenue_Rendering-credit-KPF-WEB.jpg\" "\\"Gary")
Rendering of 570 Fifth Avenue, where Ikea is planning to anchor the retail space. RENDERING: Courtesy KPF<\/p>\n