A $15 million “white box” condo at a luxury Art Deco-style building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side has become the first white box sale in the city since 2021.
Occupying the entire 46th floor of the luxury tower at 200 Amsterdam—Unit 46 was sold as “white box”—meaning that it essentially has no interior and is presented as a blank canvas to the new owners for their personal creation.
Listing agent Peter Zaitzeff of Serhant, who also stars in Season 2 of Netflix’s “Owning Manhattan,” says that white box apartments are exceedingly rare—and buyers of them even more rare.
“It’s super unique and hardly ever happens,” he tells Realtor.com®, noting that the unit is his first–and only—white box sale in over 750 transactions.
“In my experience, people want turnkey,” he says. “Even if they want to do work down the road, they want [the property] to be built out.”
Indeed, Unit 46 lingered for 270 days before finding that special buyer willing to take on a big project.
“There was a time 10 to 15 years ago where developers were like, ‘Oh, I can just build this white box because someone is going to come in and rip out everything, anyway,’ but that [buyer] mentality never materialized,” says Zaitzeff.
He points to 111 Murray in Tribeca as an example of how difficult it can be to sell a white box. The $40 million customizable penthouse sat for seven years before finding a buyer for $28 million in 2025—and only after it was built out with the most high-end touches.
The agent says that the white box sale in 200 Amsterdam happened in part because of the lack of inventory in Manhattan at this price point.
But the buyers also fell in love with the building, the location, and especially the sweeping 360-degree views—and were up for the challenge of creating their dream apartment out of scratch.
“There’s some buyers who are like ‘I’m going to build something really, really special,'” Zaitzeff says. “A lot of people don’t have that kind of vision.”
The full-floor, 3,933-square-foot sponsor unit sold for approximately $3,800 per square foot, but the new owners will have to spend an additional $1,000 per square foot to transform it into their perfect home.
“Construction costs have gone through the roof,” he says. “They’re astronomical right now, double or triple what they were in 2020.”
When you add in the cost of building out a unit, there is no real savings for snapping up the blank canvas over the finished product.
Luckily, the buyers have a trusted contractor, which puts them far ahead in the stressful world of renovation.
While the structural and mechanical elements of the light-filled apartment such as electrical, plumbing, and gas lines are in place, the otherwise blank slate means the owners will have to erect walls for their layout as well as every other design and architectural element.
A white box isn’t entirely blank—it needs to be issued a temporary certificate of occupancy to be sold, so this unit has both a workable kitchen and bathroom.
The condo can accommodate four bedrooms and four-and-a-half bathrooms, but the owner could decide, with some imagination, to build out more or less than that.
Welcome to 200 Amsterdam
A similar but turnkey four-bedroom, five-bath unit just two floors up in the same building is listed for $18,495,000 or $4,703 per square foot.
But Zaitzeff says the white box buyers bypassed this finished unit as it didn’t speak to them in quite the way Unit 46 did, and they were willing to put in the work and the money to create the home of their dreams.
“Once it’s built out, it’s going to be a really spectacular apartment,” he says, noting the breathtaking 360-degree views from the Hudson River to Central Park. “Even most apartments that sell for $35 million are half floors, so you’re either going to get northern or southern exposure.”
The building comes with a host of deluxe amenities–including a 75-foot long pool, a fitness center with Pilates and yoga studio, a club with library, terrace, dining room, and golf simulator, and a soundproof music rehearsal studio.
Residents are also given special status at nearby Lincoln Center, with behind-the-scenes perks and invitations to select performances.
The pending sale leaves only one more white box in the 112-unit tower, which has been featured not only in “Owning Manhattan,” but also in HBO’s “Succession,” the Nicole Kidman flick “Babygirl,” and Netflix’s “Zero Day.”
Manhattan’s last white box transaction, Unit 34 at 432 Park Ave., changed hands in 2021 for $19.77 million or $2,444 per square foot.
And in 2019, billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin put white box abodes on the map by famously buying a blank-slate penthouse at 220 Central Park South for a staggering $240 million.
The Billionaire’s Row condo retains its record as the most expensive sold home in the country.