Ahmass Fakahany and the Police Building at 240 Centre Street (Douglas Elliman, Altamarea Group)
Not even a secret room and 360-degree views could help one Little Italy penthouse find a buyer willing to pay an ultra-high premium.
After five years and several price chops, the domed penthouse atop the historic former NYPD headquarters at 240 Centre Street finally found a buyer — for about a quarter of what the seller first expected.
Ahmass Fakahany, the former global president and COO of Merrill Lynch and his wife, Alsun Keogh, sold the 5,500-square-foot co-op at last for $10 million, property records show.
The buyer is Aaron Chaus, heir to the women’s clothing label Chaus.
The four-story unit, which was once home to fashion designer Calvin Klein and tennis player Steffi Graf, has four bedrooms, five bathrooms, two garden patios and a hidden 40-foot room behind the tower clock.
When the unit first hit the market in 2015, Fakahany and Keogh set the asking price at $40 million.
When no buyers came forward, the price was slashed repeatedly: First to $35 million in 2016, and again to less than $28 million in 2017. In 2019, it tumbled to under $20 million when Modlin Group founder Adam Modlin and Elliman’s Tal and Oren Alexander took over the listing.
The building housed the NYPD headquarters from its completion in 1909 until 1973. It was designated a New York City landmark in 1978 and converted into a luxury co-op in 1988.
