Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned due to a prostitution scandal and recently split with his wife, still has much to celebrate. His real estate company just paid $88 million for a vacant property in an up and coming Manhattan neighborhood.
"Building is not only fun to do and interesting to do, but long-term this city is the best place to invest," Spitzer said Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The property, an L-shaped area located at 511 West 35th St. near 10th Avenue, is fit for a skyscraper hotel or office building. The lot, which Spizter said he isn't yet sure what it will be, is in the developing Hudson Yards neighborhood, also the site of another $15 billion construction over the area's rail yards.
"The notion that we would get into ground-up development is something that we've been looking at all along," Spitzer said, according The Wall Street Journal.
Spitzer said his decision to purchase the property has nothing to do with his unsuccessful attempt to run for New York City comptroller earlier this year.
The politician's father, Bernard Spitzer, was a Manhattan luxury apartment developer throughout the '60s, '70s and '80s. The company, Spitzer Enterprises, remained mostly dormant since then, until Spitzer took over after he resigned as Governor in 2008, The Wall Street Journal reported.
"Just like my father, I'm looking for prime assets in prime areas," Spitzer told the New York Daily News in September.
Spitzer wasted no time when the property was listed by then owner Alloy Development in November. Alloy paid only $24 million when it bought the property in 2007, according to the Daily News.
"There were several bids, but he moved like lightning," Robert Knakal chairman of Massey Knakal Realty Services, told The Wall Street Journal.
Knakal's company settled the Hudson yards deal between Alloy and Spitzer.
"In 20 years, I could see this being the center of the city," Knakal told the Daily News.
