The Ritz's Big Hope: Howard Marks $50 M. apartment.

Let's face it: prices at the Ritz-Carlton, while resplendent, pale in comparison to the blindingly spectacular sales at buildings like 15 Central Park West and the Plaza. But with the $70 million Steve Wynn buy behind it and a new $50 million listing, The Wall Street Journal asks: is the Ritz ready to rise again?

It's not as if the building has been doing shabbily or anything, but it hasn't been the brightest star in the sky, The Journal notes. Built in 1930 as the Hotel St. Moritz, it's lost some of the luster it once had and its debut on the luxury market was less than stellar. The condo conversion finished shortly after Sept. 11, and then the building got kind of eclipsed by the Time Warner Center and 15 Central Park West.

And yet, with the luxury market going bananas and the Steve Wynn sale and the new listing, maybe the Ritz-Carlton's time is here at last?

In any event, such speculations are a good excuse to focus on the massively expensive apartment listing of Oaktree Capital chief Howard Marks and wife Nancy, who just left the building for the super-selective corridors of 740 Park Avenue. (Not just any casino king or media mogul can buy at 740 Park, you know.) And apparently, the couple is hoping to finance their new $52.5 million apartment with the sale of their old one. At $50 million, they're certainly asking far more than they paid for it in 2007—a mere $18.8 million!

They've done extensive renovation work, of course. Now there's "stucco veneziano and a parquet de Versailles-patterned floor of German silver, hand-hammered over wood," and "a library inspired by Coco Chanel's famous Paris apartment is fitted with 18th century Chinese lacquer panels," according to the listing held by Sotheby's broker Roberta Golubock.

"They recreated the perfect apartment with 92-feet on Central Park," Ms. Golubock told The Journal. "A buyer could easily step off the elevator and move in with just with a toothbrush."

That would be a gold-plated toothbrush.

Still, even with a $50 million listing and and a $70 million sale, the Ritz-Carlton doesn't stand a chance of taking down 15 CPW. After all, $70 million is very, very impressive, but an $88 million, record-breaking sale is much, much more impressive. And Sandy Weill got every cent he had asked for, while Mr. Wynn managed to shave a full $7 million off the ask. Besides, the Ritz-Carlton shouldn't get its hopes up because soon One57 will literally overshadow all the other apartment buildings.

kvelsey@observer.com

Is his new penthouse a launching pad to a casino in New York?

It appears that casino kingpin Steve Wynn did indeed buy   Christopher Jeffries' dazzling duplex at 50 Central Park South with more in mind than great closet space and Central Park Views.

It looks like he may be angling for a little resident respect when he vies for one of the state's new casino licenses. And we thought he was still smarting over the loss of his old place at the Plaza!

Not that he thinks there should be any limit to the number of casino licenses, he told Capital New York in a recent interview.

Restricting the number of licenses immediately breeds corruption, Mr. Wynn alleged. Maybe not anything criminal, but definitely favoritism. (Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has worked to legalize gambling, would limit the number of licenses to seven)

But we'd guess a local address wouldn't hurt when the competition gets going, a competition that Mr. Wynn definitely plans to be a part of, limited licenses or not. And while he's been hush-hush about the 50 CPS deal up to this point, Mr. Wynn has finally admitted that he's pretty excited about his latest acquisition.

"I got a new apartment in New York!" he told Capital. "I bought it this morning and I’m gonna move in this fall."

Take a tour of Mr. Wynn's new digs >>

Indeed, the unit just closed for $70 million, a little under the $77.5 million ask, according to The Wall Street Journal, and the discount isn't all that surprising. After all, Mr. Wynn comes from a world where high rollers can always expect some comps.

kvelsey@observer.com

Questions for Jamie: Andrew Ross Sorkin has some questions for Jamie Dimon ahead of the JPMorgan chief executive's visit with the Senate Banking Committee on June 13. The hearing should be used as an opportunity to draw out information on the risks in the U.S. banking system, and not merely another performance of "Washington Gotcha Theater."

JPMorgan may report a second-quarter loss of $4.2 billion in its chief investment office, ISI analyst Ed Najarian said in a research note.

Whither Europe: A Spanish budget minister urged European leaders to move faster to support Spain's floundering banks, noting that spiking borrowing rates left Spain effectively locked out of capital markets.

Shall we lunch? Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein testified in the insider trading trial of former-McKinsey & Co. boss Rajat Gupta yesterday, but The Times reports the testimony was largely uneventful. The lone bright spot? Mr. Blankfein asked if the court would schedule the continuation of his testimony around a lunch the bank boss had planned for his daughter's high school graduation. The Blankfeins' reservation was for a restaurant in Yonkers, where Judge Jed Rakoff lives. Did His Honor know the place? “If it’s the one I’m thinking of, I can’t afford it,” Judge Rakoff said.

KKR brass tops list: Henry Kravis was the most highly paid executive at large U.S. financial firms last year, earning $30 million in salary and other compensation, while partner George Roberts was second at $29.9 million, according to Bloomberg Markets Magazine. Mr. Kravis and Mr. Roberts, founding partners of KKR, the private equity firm that went public in 2010, took home an additional $64.2 million in dividends and other distributions accrued to their stakes in the company.

Emerging market: Steve Wynn's newest Macau casino will cost $4 billion to build, even as the island-gambling destination reported slower revenue growth.

Banker passes: Marion O. Sandler, the pioneering Wall Street woman who built Golden West Financial into one of the largest thrifts in the country, is dead at 81. Ms. Sandler and her husband Herbert sold Golden West to Wachovia in 2006, and came in for a share of blame when the bottom fell out of the U.S. housing market. The Sandlers sank much of the $2.4 billion they reaped from the Golden West sale into charities, The Times reports, including ProPublica, the investigative journalism outfit.

According to the Post, Mr. Wynn has put in a winning $70 million bid for Millenium Partners' founding partner Christopher M. Jeffries' $77.5 million pad.

Mr. Wynn was rumored to be looking at the 50 Central Park South penthouse some time ago, but representatives for Mr. Wynn would not confirm reports that the Las Vegas honcho was considering the 10,882-square-foot spread in the building. The unit is listed with Brown Harris Stevens broker Kyle Blackmon, who grabbed the listing after his stellar $88 million performance at another dizzyingly, high-end condo: 15 Central Park West.

And Mr. Wynn has been touring a lot of listings these days, making no secret of his search for apartment love, and reportedly becoming very very interested in Teddy Forstmann's co-op at 2 East 70th Street. But then, the co-op board of 2 East 70th is said to be highly selective, unlike a full-service condo/hotel where anyone with the cash can snap up a unit. Much like the democratic spirit of a casino?

The unit is certainly fit for a king, casino or otherwise. It spans the 30th and 31st floors and includes a living room fashioned from what was once a grand ballroom (it's 900 square feet). Twenty-six windows gaze out at Central Park, the master bedroom has American Walnut doors and there's an 800-square-foot closet (can a closet still be called a closet when it's 800-square-feet?). Naturally, there are terraces and 15-foot ceilings and a museum-quality display room.

With this contract coming on the heels of yesterday's 740 Park sale to Oaktree Capital's Howard Marks, we're left wondering what's left on the market for real estate trophy seekers. Gary Barnett must be licking his chops.

kvelsey@observer.com

The Forstmann penthouse: a prime apartment in a prime building on a prime block

While some residences linger on the market for years, changing prices and waiting in vain for a buyer to come along and love them, others are pounced on almost immediately. The penthouse that once belonged to billionaire Teddy Forstmann is one such case. Not only was the Upper East Side co-op apartment at the center of a bidding war, but it wasn't even listed publicly!

The multi-floor spread at 2 East 70th Street is in contract for $40 million—a nice chunk of change, especially considering the $36 million ask, according to the Olshan Luxury Market report (the pending sale was first noted in a Crain's).

The apartment, along with a Southampton mansion, are being sold by Forstmann's estate following the private equity pioneer's death last year from brain cancer.

The penthouse is located in a tony building built in 1927 by Rosario Candela. And while details about Forstmann's place remain hazy given the lack of listing,  we're going to go out on a limb and say it's probably a pretty stunning if it sets off a bidding war at $36 million.

The New York Post, which first reported the secret listing, describes a 4,000 square-foot luxury apartment spanning two floors, with the master bedroom suite and formal library/sitting room upstairs and two other bedrooms downstairs. Also included: a wraparound terrace with views of Central Park, the Frick and Fifth Avenue. The apartment is reportedly being sold by Sotheby's brokers Serena Boardman and Meredyth Smith, who did not return calls seeking comment.

So who will be the next resident of this probably breathtaking penthouse? Rumor had it that casino king Steve Wynn was very, very interested in the apartment. But the buyer, like so many other things, remains a mystery for now.

Not included with the apartment: the love of Padma Lakshmi.

kvelsey@observer.com

Las Vegas gambling kingpin Steve Wynn has just sold his penthouse at the Plaza for $24.4 million. That's $1 million more than he paid for it just a few months ago. Of course, when it comes to transfer taxes and commission, no one is a winner, and Mr. Wynn is likely to just break even on the sale, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Still, that is a better bet for Wynn than his last transaction, when he was forced to hand over his Fifth Avenue spread to his ex-wife in October.

The buyer of the Plaza apartment is an LLC, so we're left in suspense about who will be keeping Eloise company these days. 

This isn't the first time buyer's remorse struck one of the Plaza's prized penthouse. Earlier this year, another buyer backed out right after the renovation of the apartment was complete and it went back on the market for $24 million. Indeed, there's been much quibbling about the aesthetics in the various penthouses. 

This is all something of a mystery to us because the 5,600-square-foot unit Wynn just sold looks pretty tasteful to us, with nary a garish gold P in sight. 

lkusisto@observer.com

The offer slipped off the market December 18, according to StreetEasy. That's only three weeks before Mr. and Mrs. Wynn settled their divorce, reportedly for $741 million. (She received stock in Wynn Resorts Ltd., whose price shot up in the spring, putting the divorce's value at close to $1 billion.)

It is unclear whether the 3,500-square-foot, 14-room abode was part of the settlement, but according to City Records, the former couple swapped control for $17.155 million on October 6. (The documents were posted at 5:44 p.m. today. Friday night. How convenient.) It is it also unclear whether the deal includes any furniture, which Mr. Wynn's broker, Sotheby's Roger Erickson, told The Observer last year was part of the offer and valued at $4 million. Nor the status of Mr. Wynn's estimable art collection, which can be seen in photos from the listing but which Mr. Erickson previously said was not included with the apartment.

The Observer reached the broker in Washington, D.C., where he was visiting his son at college. "This is not a good time for me to talk right now," Mr. Erickson said upon answering the phone. When asked about the deal, he promptly hung up without responding, though he did email shortly thereafter. "Sorry I couldn't speak with you," Mr. Erickson wrote. "Nothing to comment on this transfer." Calls to Wynne Resorts led to six phone transfers followed by an email, which has yet to be responded to.

New York has been unkind to Mr. Wynn of late, as his plan to invest in a racino at the Aquaduct race track failed to leave the gate.

The 15-story limestone beauty at 817 Fifth Avenue was built in 1925 and has only 16 apartments, all but the bottom two of which occupy the entire floor. Those units enjoy 50 feet of frontage on the Park, and according to Mr. Erickson's listing, Mr. Wynn's unit received an "immaculate renovation designed for ultimate comfort." There are two enormous bedrooms and bathrooms, all of which look out on the park. (Watching the sun set over Sheep Meadow must be one of life's true joys.)

As The Observer reported a decade ago, Mr.  Wynn has been in the building since 1995, when his Mirage Resorts bought it for $1.575 million. When a hostile takeover bought him out of the company in 2000, he went shopping elsewhere, but ultimately wound up staying put, though it cost him $7 million to buy the apartment from Mirage. At the time, Richard Gere was his neighbor, but Mr. Gere and wife Carey Lowell moved out in 2004. The apartment famously flooded that same year, when pipes above burst, leading to extensive water damage.

Mr. Wynn should look on the bright side, though. At least he got some of his money back on this deal.

mchaban [at] observer.com / @mc_nyo

"This isn't a pretty place," said Donald Rosen, whose horse, Boxitup, finished second in the eighth race that day. "Hopefully, when they get the slots, they'll fix it up and get people to come here."

Is it more depressing than the gridlock in Albany, where they've been talking about sprucing the place up since the last economic depression? Hard to say.

"It is a mystery why this is taking so long, since it is costing over a million dollars a day not to have it open," said Jeff Gural, a minority partner in the SL Green group who owns two small racetracks upstate that have electronic slot machines. "The original decision was promised for Aug. 1."

So that's $115 million lost, if you count from the August date, or $2.9 billion if you go back eight years.

And there's still no sense of when the governor, the Assembly, and the Senate will collectively decide on a winning bid. In the meantime, Governor Paterson keeps changing the rules; he recently demanded another round of final bids, with a new clause demanding $200 million upfront. That twist prompted Steve Wynn, the famous casino magnate, to drop his bid for a Vegas-style renovation. And, in another strange twist, one of the groups recently hired hip hop pioneer Russell Simmons to act as a community relations advisor.

If the state ever decides on a winner, the decision will almost certainly prompt a whole host of lawsuits. "I have a lot of problems with the process," one attorney consulting a bidder told the Times. "Whoever is selected, I think you can argue that the decision was arbitrary and capricious."

Today, Mr. Wynn pulled his proposal to develop a "high-end clubby" slot machine parlor in Queens, just weeks before state leaders are expected to announce a licensee for the site.

It's a surprising turn for the casino mogul. In August, Mr. Wynn sounded awfully excited about his first New York venture. "New York City is New York City is New York City," Mr. Wynn told Dana Rubinstein, adding that he had "$1 billion in cash in a bank, in T-bills."

It would appear Mr. Wynn isn't eager to liquidate those T-bills now. His decision comes just a week after Governor David Paterson asked the six remaining developers--now down to five--to prove they could pony up $200 million within thirty days of being selected.

Without Mr. Wynn, the front-runners appear to be Penn National Gaming, which had already proposed putting up $200 million, and SL Green, that vast empire of commercial office space, which released this statement:

"Our proposal has always been the best one to meet the needs of the State's taxpayers and the community. That's still the case. As we near the end of the process, we feel more confident than ever that the decision will be made on merit and that we will be selected."

The state would be smart to choose a homegrown firm, SL Green, to develop the site. There’s no need to bring in carpetbaggers who have built casinos elsewhere—SL Green knows the New York market, and its proposal, a joint venture with Hard Rock Café, reflects the firm’s realization that the Big Apple isn’t Vegas, or Atlantic City, or some garish gambling factory in the wilds of New England.

It’s no secret that the horse-racing industry isn’t what it used to be. Aqueduct and Belmont no longer bring in horse players by the tens of thousands, except on special occasions. That means that the state isn’t getting the sort of revenue it used to enjoy from the racing industry. The addition of slot machines—technically, they are video lottery terminals—has perked up attendance and betting at tracks around the region. Yonkers Raceway, the venerable harness-racing facility just to the north of the Bronx border, has reinvented itself with slot machines and entertainment.

New York is hoping for success on a grander scale at Aqueduct. But that will happen only if the state makes a wise choice to develop the track. SL Green’s plan calls for a huge food court, a Hard Rock memorabilia bar, retail outlets and other amenities suited to New Yorkers, in addition to thousands of slot machines. The company’s CEO, Marc Holliday, observed that New Yorkers won’t turn out for what he called a “slot warehouse.” The Aqueduct racino needs to have style and New York attitude. Mr. Holliday’s company gets that.

The state hopes it can make $1 million a day in revenue once the Aqueduct racino opens. That won’t solve the state’s systemic budget problems, but it won’t hurt, either. Done properly, a new Aqueduct could be a gem, and a profit center. SL Green’s proposal seems best suited for the job at hand.