Clocktower penthouse finds a buyer

After a significant price drop and after hanging out on the market for months, the penthouse inside the Clocktower finally sold. According to Socket Site, the South Beach pad nabbed $4.85 million.

A nice chunk of change, but far from the original asking price in 2016 of $8.5 million. After slimming down to $6.25 million in 2017, then $4.99 million last month, it finally found a buy who threw down a figure roughly $140,000 shy of the asking price.

Time marches on at the historic Clocktower Building at 461 Second Street, where the knockout penthouse returns to the market, now asking $6 million, or $2.5 million less than it did in 2016.

It’s still the same package it was three years ago, featuring two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and some 3,000 square feet adorned with concrete flooring, original bricks, and wraparound deck. There’s even a game room with a Dirty Harry pinball machine—if that doesn’t make your day then what will?

Most noteworthy is the clocktower room with a working mechanical parts that operate the four large clocks adorning the tower’s exterior.

Realtors Rob Levy and Eric Turner call the new listing a “once in a lifetime opportunity,” although technically this is now twice in a lifetime, or thrice for those who were around for its last sale in 1993 for a mere $710,000—less than $1.28 million in modern currency.

The circa 1907 building started as the headquarters of the Schmidt Lithograph Corporation; what’s now the penthouse originally served as a tower-top workspace that allowed printers more direct sunlight to work with.

After narrowly escaping demolition by the city in the 1930s, architect David Baker redesigned the building in 1992 as 127 premium condos, with the tower penthouse itself a crowning masterpiece on top of the whole thing.

It seemed the time was right in 2016 to cash out the residence, with the market as hot as it’s ever been and the clocktower loft being a truly one-of-a-kind asset.

But time proved a harsh mistress, as a series of price cuts followed one after another without a sale.

It was down to $6.25 minion by mid-2018 and then dropped away completely, finally rolling back around again earlier this month with a new, even lower target price.