Extell pays $34.9M for air rights tied to 34 and 36 East 61st

For builders and brokers, the pattern is the point. Extell has assembled this block in pieces: the outlet reports a $160M site purchase in 2024, a $103M purchase of 33-39 East 60th Street in March 2025, and $39.9M for 135,146 square feet of air rights from 1 East 60th Street in February 2026. The East 61st deal is the latest addition. Neighboring owners with unused floor area should expect Extell to keep asking.

The numbers

The reported price is $34.9M for air rights from two lots, 34 and 36 East 61st Street. The outlet does not state how many square feet transferred, and we could not confirm the deed’s square footage from a recorded document before publication, so we do not show a price per foot.

For context, our earlier coverage of Extell’s air-rights deal at 570 Fifth Avenue put that price near $275 per square foot for nearly 87,000 square feet. That is a separate transaction and not a benchmark for this one. Neither Extell nor Hartz Mountain had responded to the outlet’s requests for comment at publication.

What’s next

Watch for the recorded deed, which should show the transferred floor area and whether the lots themselves changed hands. A filing for a revised 655 Madison tower, or a zoning lot merger covering the East 61st parcels, would show how much the air rights add to the design.

Lenders and tenants will read the same signal. Commercial Observer reports Chanel as a potential tenant at the base. More coverage of the market is on our New York page.