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Central Park for $528,783,552,000. Going once. Going twice.

What's the estimated land value of Central Park in New York?

~Trevor

Alliston, Ontario

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Dear Trevor:

Why? You interested in making a bid? Crack open your piggy bank, then. In a Christmas-day cover story last year, "New York Magazine" cited one of the "Reasons to Love New York" as "Because We Wouldn't Trade a Patch of Grass for $528,783,552,000."

That's the estimated worth of all the land in Central Park. (Here are some numbers used in the estimate.) In case the sight of that figure fried your numerical recognition, that's nearly 529 billion dollars. That prices out to about $627 million an acre, or 26% more than the entire 2006 U.S. defense budget, or 7 million times the price of Boardwalk and Park Place together. Considering that New York "paid more than $5 million for undeveloped land from 59th Street to 106th Street" between 1853 and 1856, that's pretty good appreciation.

But even if the city needed the money, it might not want to sell off its giant patch-of-green-amidst-the-concrete. Real estate pundit Jonathan Miller writes "the net value of all of Manhattan would be less after Central Park was developed." And this article from the electronic journal "Planning & Markets" states: "...the city council keeps Manhattan's Central Park unbuilt not because Greens rule the Big Apple, but because property values overall are higher with the park than with luxury condos on the site."

Labels: Manhattan

posted by Benjamin @ 7.2.07