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New York City’s Chrysler Building Up for Sale

“There might be a billionaire who comes along and says, ‘I want to tell the world I own the Chrysler Building.’”

New York City’s iconic Chrysler Building is up for sale. The owners of the building, an Abu Dhabi government fund and New York developer Tishman Speyer, have hired a commercial real estate firm to market the art deco office tower, which was completed in 1930. The building’s owners are hoping to attract deep-pocketed buyers, offering them the opportunity to own a famous slice of the Manhattan skyline. In recent years, U.S. and overseas investors have splurged on famous properties like New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, for which a Chinese insurer paid $1.95 billion in 2015—a record for a U.S. hotel sale. Estimates for the property’s value vary widely due to the costs of upkeep for the nearly 90-year-old building, and the escalating fees for leasing the ground beneath it. “There might be a billionaire who comes along and says, ‘I want to tell the world I own the Chrysler Building,’” said Adelaide Polsinelli, vice chair of the commercial investment sales and leasing division at real-estate services firm Compass.