Peering down from the thirtieth flooring of one of many tallest residential buildings within the metropolis, Nikki Discipline spied a previous success.
“I really like that we glance down on Jeff Bezos,” she stated, pointing to the $80 million penthouse at 212 Fifth Avenue she offered the tech billionaire in 2019. The deal was a part of the sellout of the ultimate 50 p.c of the items on the undertaking, which she took over gross sales of two years prior.
“That’s the place we began, down there, and right here’s the place we are actually,” she stated. “Right here” being 262 Fifth Avenue, the superskinny tower that now looms over Fifth Avenue from West twenty ninth Road and, infamously, paints a vertical stripe over the Empire State Constructing within the downtown view of Midtown’s skyline.
In between Bezos and now, Discipline reappraised herself as a growth rescue artist, promoting half a billion {dollars} on the taller, skinnier 111 West 57th, which she and her group from Sotheby’s took over when practically a 3rd of its items lingered unsold.
After that feat, “we had lots of suitors come to the door,” she stated. “So much, all of them, all people that’s on the market proper now.”
“We constructed a reasonably good status in rescuing buildings.”
New growth brokers who seek the advice of on a undertaking early may get some affect on layouts or finishes. These employed later need to imagine within the constructing that exists.
Discipline’s turnaround magic is a few ineffable mixture of branding, momentum-building and salesmanship, she stated. However she has additionally confirmed adept at following the cash, whether or not to the Higher East Aspect’s higher crust, the Center East or the pockets of execs at about-to-go public AI firms, and at presiding over value cuts, although she brushes that off.
In taking on 5 Factors Improvement Group’s 262 Fifth — town’s second-skinniest residential apartment, after 111 West 57th — Discipline appears to be specializing even additional, as a superskinny, supertall savior.
She dismisses that premise too. “Vital, soon-to-be-iconic buildings are our new specialty,” she stated.
New York in the present day has fewer “soon-to-be-iconic” buildings on which brokers can burnish their status. New growth stock is at its lowest ranges since 2014, and builders have stepped again from the earlier period’s skyline-altering towers — typically thought of secure deposit containers for uber-wealthy foreigners — to give attention to boutique, contextual condos nestled into unassuming corners of Downtown Manhattan.
Understated buildings don’t construct a status, and Discipline is a self-described “model whore.”
“I feel it’s simply going to cement our credentials for brand spanking new growth,” she defined.
Discipline was introduced as head of gross sales in April and has held off on entertaining offers. That might change in a matter of weeks, she stated, however it nonetheless will depend on building progress.
Including to the problem, the constructing is without doubt one of the most costly choices in Nomad. “I’m unsure that it’s going to be that simple to search out 26 patrons at $4,000 or $5,000 per sq. foot within the location,” Compass’ Vickey Barron stated.
Up to now, Discipline appears unperturbed, which can be on model.
“We’ll see if we’re improper, we predict we’re going to promote out by the top of the 12 months,” she stated. “Let’s put it on the calendar, Dec. 31, and we are able to see what occurs.”
Super exhausting to promote
In some ways, 262 Fifth is the final of a dying breed.
The constructing dates again to the mid-2010s, an period dominated by builders racing to create inventory for the rich overseas patrons, together with the dramatic supertalls of Billionaires’ Row.
Contained in the towers are a few of the most costly properties ever offered, like a 107th-floor residence at Central Park Tower that in 2024 offered for $115 million, or $9,200 per foot, or the 96th-floor unit at 432 Park Avenue that Saudi retail magnate Fawaz Alhokair purchased for $88 million, or over $10,000 per sq. foot, in 2016.
Gross sales stalled towards the top of the last decade. “The entire premise of it was primarily based on a mistaken assumption that the market was vast sufficient and deep sufficient for lots of buildings to come back on concurrently,” market analyst Jonathan Miller informed The Actual Deal beforehand.
“Rescues are nice as a result of they’ve tried all people else. You are available in, they pay attention, you get it performed, and also you don’t have to fret about being changed.”
Discipline grew to become a go-to new-development dealer throughout this era. She broke into the business in 1996 promoting medical workplaces, pivoting to penthouses after which townhouses. In a short while, her group, co-led with the late Gillian Jolis, was transferring tons of of tens of millions in actual property every year.
She reinvented herself in 2008, constructing out desks overlaying Asia, the Center East, India and Europe to funnel rich patrons her approach. She even co-authored a Chinese language-language ebook on actual property funding in America, titled “Chinese language Establishments’ Definitive Information to USA Business Actual Property,” which was printed in 2017 by way of a neighborhood Beijing writer. Asian patrons account for 1 / 4 of her gross sales in the present day, she stated.
Hoovering up that purchaser pool gave Discipline entry to the burgeoning new growth scene. She did a lot of offers in Extell’s Billionaires’ Row tower at 157 West 57th, also called One57. Discipline additionally began nabbing listings at tasks like Extell’s Stanhope constructing at 995 Fifth Avenue in 2012 and the Kushner Firms’ Puck Penthouses at 295 Lafayette Road in 2014. She obtained the ultimate $20 million penthouse at 277 Fifth Avenue in 2025.
Discipline has caught with Sotheby’s for nearly three a long time due to its model, which she says “protects, advances, solidifies and securitizes the Discipline Crew model.”
Billionaires’ Row downtown
The tower at 262 Fifth by no means obtained an opportunity to catch the identical foreign-buyer wave that carried gross sales early on within the Billionaires’ Row buildings.
Boris Kuzinez, a Latvian-born Israeli recognized for his formidable luxurious condos in Russia, conceived of 262 Fifth round 2014 after a failed house hunt within the metropolis persuaded him to simply develop his “personal house,” in keeping with court docket paperwork in a case associated to a previous fee dispute.
Via a growth entity, Kuzinez paid $26 million in an all-cash deal for a growth web site at 264 Fifth Avenue in 2014. Over the following two years, Kuzinez stitched collectively two extra parcels, at 262 Fifth Avenue and 260 Fifth Avenue, together with close by air rights, bringing the whole price to greater than $100 million. (Kuzinez later stated in court docket that he paid 50 p.c over market charge for the positioning at 262 Fifth as a result of he wanted the event rights.)
The preliminary plan had the tower reaching 1,000 ft, with 40 items and 11,000 sq. ft of retail area.
However the construction is within the direct sightline of the Empire State Constructing from Madison Sq. Park, and the group hated the plans and whom they’d appeal to. The group pushback didn’t have an effect on the destiny of the undertaking, however the financing did. In 2021, Kuzinez sold the parcel at 260 Fifth for $53 million to a Texas rug producer due to his wrestle to acquire financing, in keeping with later court docket paperwork.
In 2023, Kuzinez emerged with a brand new proposal, an 860-foot tower with simply 26 items. The architects had put the elevators and mechanical in an offset core, clad in black paneling, to maintain interiors open. That chopped up the surface vantage on the Empire State Constructing with each a single glassy needle and a second rectangle that seems like its shadow. In 2024, the New York lawyer normal’s workplace authorized its providing plan.
The developer had secured $180 million in building and mezzanine financing from Madison Realty Capital and Cottonwood in 2023. Final 12 months, Cottonwood purchased Madison Realty out, and the undertaking later tacked on one other $75 million in building financing from Goodman Capital, in keeping with the Business Observer.
Kuzinez tapped Douglas Elliman’s Michael Graves group for gross sales on the finish of 2024, however listings by no means appeared publicly within the months after, and Douglas Elliman rolled off the undertaking in Could. A supply acquainted with the undertaking stated the builders acquired no less than one money provide however struggled to decide to ensures on the undertaking’s timeline. At that time, the undertaking additionally didn’t have a mannequin gross sales unit or correct gross sales gallery, in keeping with a number of sources acquainted with the undertaking.
Graves declined to remark.
The undertaking additionally has a comparatively unknown developer making an attempt to set a brand new value stage in a comparatively untested space. “One of many challenges was that that was my first undertaking within the metropolis of New York,” Kuzinez himself testified in court docket. “No one is aware of me.”
Pricing has solely been launched on a handful of items. The most cost effective is a 2,200-square-foot full-floor unit asking $7.5 million, or over $3,000 per sq. foot, whereas the most costly is a 2,900-square-foot duplex asking over $23 million, or over $8,000 per sq. foot.
Not but priced is the penthouse quadruplex, which spans over 9,600 sq. ft with its personal personal outside area and pool that Discipline says will probably be in extra of $100 million.
Previous tasks within the space have been hit and miss. For instance, Victor Group and Lendlease’s 2015 growth at 277 Fifth Avenue, which is simply throughout the road, offered sponsor items asking on common $3,500 per sq. foot at a mean low cost of 25 p.c, in keeping with Marketproof.
‘They’re going to make it sturdy’
Discipline insists that demand for the undertaking is already greater than sufficient.
Discipline referred to as a current exhibiting “an Anthropic workplace assembly.” Eight staff of the soon-to-go-public AI agency confirmed up — clients with cash to spend however maybe not such a rarefied view of location.
“They don’t know the distinction in neighborhoods but,” she stated. “They’re going to make it sturdy.”
Discipline is aware of the significance of momentum. In 2017, when she took on gross sales for the ultimate 50 p.c of Madison Equities’ undertaking at 212 Fifth Avenue, she had hassle initially transferring items. She minimize the worth on the crown jewel penthouse, a ten,000-square-foot triplex that when requested $73 million. That, and two extra, had been what Bezos purchased, for $80 million in 2019.
The remainder of the constructing’s 11 items offered after that, Discipline stated.
At 111 West 57th, Discipline dished out alternative reductions to high-profile patrons like Shark Tank’s Robert Herjavec and British billionaire Christian Sweet, each of whose offers ended up within the Wall Road Journal. She additionally fired the workers, dropped “Steinway Tower” from the title, removed concessions and tapped her overseas purchaser community, amongst different modifications. Roughly a 3rd of the patrons got here from her overseas purchaser community, she stated.
She maintains the success didn’t rely upon chopping costs. However, she was probably aided by value cuts of about 20 p.c on a lot of items earlier than she took over. Unit 43 had been available on the market for nearly $29 million in 2023; the worth dropped to $23 million in 2024, and it offered for $21.3 million in 2025.
Being a turnaround specialist has its perks, Discipline admits. “Rescues are nice as a result of they’ve tried all people else,” she stated. “You are available in, they pay attention, you get it performed, and also you don’t have to fret about being changed.”
Building versus branding
The tower at 262 Fifth will not be a rescue job, no less than not in the identical approach, Discipline stated. A mannequin unit lastly opened this previous summer season, and Discipline expects to have the ability to transfer folks in at the beginning of subsequent 12 months.
She is unfazed by the historical past but additionally appears to comprehend patrons have to be inside to get it.
“We’re being actually clear with the folks which are previewing that it isn’t prepared for buy,” she stated. The constructing simply must be completed as a lot as potential in order that it “will command the costs we’re asking now,” Discipline stated. She has held agency on not accepting gives.
Mundi Group’s Jorge Lopez, who has toured the property, stated the “pricing appeared a little bit excessive,” and agreed {that a} completed constructing would give “a greater concept of the standard as a result of it could possibly be price it when you see the whole lot put collectively.”
Discipline expects closings to start as early as the primary quarter of subsequent 12 months. However for a constructing 10 years within the making, that’s no certain factor.
On a tour of the mannequin unit, Discipline factors to all of the methods the constructing was designed “bizarrely expensively”: the completed closets (“No one delivers closets with a shelf in it”), completely sq. layouts and seven-layer glass home windows, which minimize the noise. We stand in solemnity, appreciating the silence and the unimpeded views down Fifth Avenue to the tip of Manhattan, interrupted solely by Ben Pofcher, Discipline’s de facto new growth specialist, who typically nudges Discipline to tone down sure claims or numbers.
Each different floor-through constructing within the metropolis has a core within the center, Discipline bragged, earlier than Pofcher — curly brown hair, boyish face — jumped in to make clear, “on the report,” he was 99 p.c certain that’s true.
On the tour, Discipline fretted over a paper lamp in a studying nook that “reads low cost” to her. Pofcher, additionally in his aspect, flaunted the house’s triple-filtered air and radiant heated flooring.
In the long run, promoting new developments is much less about particular person options than an unwieldy concoction of timing, location, high quality, pricing and vitality. Discipline and her group have a tendency to choose the correct undertaking on the proper time.
“The Discipline Crew and our new growth group are actually, actually cautious about what we put our title on,” she informed TRD every week earlier.
From the road at West twenty ninth Road and Fifth Avenue, Discipline, in a trim black pantsuit and Dolce and Gabbana shades, will get the everyman vantage on the constructing, the place discovering the previous view of the Empire State Constructing is tougher than adjusting a lamp.
Or perhaps it’s only a branding downside.
You possibly can nonetheless see the icon, Discipline had stated earlier, on the tour, when the view problem got here up. Simply “transfer 10 ft to the correct.”
