Charlie Munger once famously said, “Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome.” If you’re looking for proof, consider the development site at 1800 Park Avenue in Upper Manhattan.
For background, the troubled parcel has traded hands several times over a two-decade period like an unloved stepchild among some of NYC’s largest developers. In 2007, Vornado Realty Trust acquired the site for approximately $40 million before selling it to Bruce Eichner’s Continuum Companies for $66 million in 2013. In 2017, the Durst Organization acquired it from Eichner for more than $90 million, only to later sell it to David Bistricer’s Clipper Equity for $50 million. Kudos to the brokers and attorneys involved in each of those transactions—and to David Bistricer, who recently filed plans and is likely to be the one to finally take the project vertical.
1800 Park Avenue—A Goliath of a Site
The site is irregularly shaped but quite the behemoth, with more than 600,000 buildable square feet supporting 693 apartments, according to The Real Deal. Interestingly, the plans filed by Clipper Equity suggest seven separate structures (as opposed to one larger building), each with 99 apartments. Architecturally, aesthetically and from an efficiency standpoint, this makes little sense. Multiple buildings mean duplicate cores, elevators, roofs and mechanical systems.
So why do it? Because incentives matter.
The 100th Apartment Is the Problem
Under New York City’s prevailing wage requirements, developers must pay up to $72 per hour to construction workers, along with additional work-rule and compliance requirements, when building projects with 100 or more residential units. Those costs add up quickly and, according to the New York City Independent Budget Office, can increase housing construction costs by roughly 25%.
Developers, unsurprisingly, optimize around the rule. Instead of one large structure, they explore ways to split projects into multiple properties of 99 apartments each. As one NYC broker put it “developers are spending more time trying to figure out how to subdivide the site to create pads on which they could build 99-unit buildings than thinking about anything else.”
Predictable? Absolutely.
Leave rulemaking to legislative neophytes and results like this shouldn’t be surprising. The data bears it out. A Bloomberg analysis from September 2025 found that 28 permits were filed for buildings with exactly 99 units in a single year—more than double the total from the previous
Closing Time: Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em
The party for developers, however, may not last forever. Currently, the 99-unit threshold applies to individual buildings. But legislators could easily amend the rule so that prevailing wages are triggered when a project or zoning lot exceeds 99 units. That would effectively eliminate projects like 1800 Park Avenue—and countless others—because the total 693 apartments would be considered for prevailing wages.
Close the loophole and you risk killing future development. Leave it and developers will continue building inefficient workarounds. With that uncertainty looming, developers are racing to file these projects made up of 99-unit buildings while the rules remain unchanged.
You hate to call out legislators—it can feel like punching down. But when incentives are this clear, the outcome should surprise no one.
Sources:
David Bistricer Embraces 99-Unit Playbook
the-impact-of-prevailing-wage-requirement-on-affordable-housing-construction-in-new-york-city.pdf
Six 99-unit buildings planned for Jamaica, Queens
NYC Apartment Construction Wage Requirement Leads to 99-Unit Buildings – Bloomberg
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