Richemont is buyer of 690 Madison, pays SLG, Jeff Sutton $54.5M: Sources

The Swiss luxury goods retailer Richemont which occupies the entire five-story retail building at 690 Madison Avenue in Lenox Hill, Manhattan, through its French high-end jewelry brand Van Cleef & Arpels, paid $54.5 million to SL Green Realty and Jeff Sutton, owner of Wharton Properties, to purchase the property, according to sources.
SL Green Realty announced yesterday in a press release that it and Jeff Sutton had sold the property for $54.5 million, but the release did not disclose the buyer.
In the press release, SL Green’s chief investment officer, Harrison Sitomer, said, “The sale of 690 Madison Avenue underscores the continued trend of significant demand for flagship locations occupied by high-end retail users along Manhattan’s finest retail corridors.”
This purchase continues the recent trend of users buying retail locations. In SoHo alone over the past year, Frasers Group (owner of Everlast), Alo Yoga, Aflalo LLC, Ikea, and Ralph Lauren, have purchased retail locations.

Richemont’s portfolio includes jewelers Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, and Buccellati. Its watchmaking division includes Vacheron Constantin, Jaeger-LeCoultre, IWC Schaffhausen, Panerai, Piaget, and A. Lange & Söhne, representing a mix of Swiss, Italian, and German luxury brands.

SL Green Realty declined to comment and referred to the press release. Wharton Properties and Richemont did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

SL Green Realty took control of the property from Ben Ashkenazy’s Ashkenazy Acquisition in September 2021, after winning a UCC mezzanine foreclosure auction that was initially scheduled for September 2, 2021. Ben Ashkenazy’s investment firm bought the 7,850-square-foot, five-story building in 2015 for $115.2 million. It borrowed $72 million from the Bank of China to finance the purchase. Then in 2016 SL Green provided a mezzanine loan, which had a balance as of August of $3.85 million, The Real Deal reported in 2021. It is that loan that was foreclosed on.

Jeff Sutton acquired a stake in the property in December 2024.

The property

The retail building in Lenox Hill has 6,620 square feet of built space and 7,673 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 14,290 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 20 feet and is 70 feet deep with a total lot size of 1,429 square feet. The zoning is C5-1 which allows for up to 4 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 10 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The property is in the Upper East Side Historic District. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $40.1 million. The most recent loan totaled $72 million and was provided by Bank of China on September 30, 2021.

Prior sales, articles and revenue

This property was sold by Wharton Properties for $30.6 million to SL Green Realty on December 5, 2024.

The 6,620-square-foot property generated revenue of $3.3 million or $503 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

Development

For the tax lot building, it received its initial certificate of occupancy on July 13, 2012.

Violations and lawsuits

According to city public data, the property has received two DOB violations and $1,000 in OATH penalties in the last year.

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months.

The neighborhood

In Lenox Hill, The bulk, or 34 percent of the 53.3 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 30 percent of the space. In sales, Lenox Hill has the 2nd highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $4.6 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Lenox Hill has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 23rd highest in Manhattan. It had 1.6 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 3 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 11 of the 22 commercial properties representing 210,088 square feet of the 425,089 square feet. The largest owner is Buchbinder & Warren, followed by Chapman Group and then Dfaweast. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The owner

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Wharton Properties owned at least 87 commercial properties with 205 residential units in New York City with 3,210,065 square feet and a city-determined market value of $1.6 billion. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $369.5 million in debt, with top three lenders as Rialto Management Group, Valley National Bank, and Bank of China respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 66 percent of the 3,210,065 square feet of built space are office properties, with retail properties next occupying 21 percent of the space. The bulk, or 86 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 10 percent of the space.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 23 East 62 Street, PincusCo identified 17 commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those 17 items, three were for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. They were two permit applications with a total initial cost of $21.6 million and one permit with a total initial cost of $8.2 million. The most recent of these three items was the filing on July 15, 2025 for a 4,800-square-foot 69 building with zero residential units at 710 Madison Avenue. Of those 17 items, seven were sales above $5 million totaling $1.2 billion. The most recent of the seven was John King, Trustee which bought the 12,347-square-foot, one-unit townhouse (A4) on 8 East 62nd Street for $55 million from Aston Fifth LLC on February 26, 2026. Of those 17 items, seven were loans above $5 million totaling $706.7 million. The most recent of the seven was Patrick Y. Lee in which borrowed $31.9 million from City National Bank secured by one condo unit in the 12,658-square-foot, 72-unit mixed-use building (RM) on 26 East 63rd Street on January 8, 2026.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page and link to DOB NOW portal.