Skyscraper Sale Sets Record

Another day, another New York City real estate record.

This time, a Fifth Avenue skyscraper is shredding previous records for prices paid for a single office building anywhere in the country.

A New Jersey real estate family, the Kushners, will buy 666 Fifth Ave. from Tishman Speyer Properties for $1.8 billion, beating a $1.72 billion record that Tishman Speyer set in buying the MetLife Building a few streets over.

The family says the office tower will raise their profile in New York City. The company also owns a smaller building downtown, but the bulk of its holdings are in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

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"This is a great acquisition for our company," said Jared Kushner, a principal at Kushner Companies.

Occupying a high-profile block in midtown, the tower rubs shoulders with such Fifth Avenue landmarks as Rockefeller Center and St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Tishman Speyer broke another real-estate record last month. It bought a massive Manhattan apartment complex, Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, for $5.4 billion, in the biggest real estate deal of any kind in the country.

© 2006 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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