Even as higher mortgage rates and economic uncertainty slow New York property sales, a newly completed luxury residential tower shows that buildings with a unique design and appealing features can withstand market whims: This building is not only mostly sold, but it has done so after price hikes and with no discounts.

The 66-story condo tower, rising 800 feet and located at 130 William St. in lower Manhattan, has stood out by evoking New York’s history of classic masonry architecture. It's a contemporary take manifest in lava-like textured hand-cast concrete facade that differs from new modern glass towers that are a common design theme in Manhattan and elsewhere.

Located between Fulton and John streets near the New York Stock Exchange, the building, featuring 242 luxury residences from studios to four-bedroom apartments, is aimed at giving a nod to New York’s history and lower Manhattan’s industrial past.

The building’s large-scale arched windows, offering sweeping views of New York waterfronts and the city, were inspired by the lofts that once populated the area, along with residences that feature Loggia terraces over 600 feet in the air, according to developer Lightstone Group.

Creating something unique paid off. Lightstone’s Senior Vice President of Development Scott Avram told CoStar News over 90% of the building's residences have sold. All the transactions were at full price, even after the developer raised unit prices some 19 times. He said the building’s loans have long been paid off. “It’s a great project for us,” Avram said, adding the tower was the best-selling condo building in the city during the pandemic.

British-Ghanaian architect Sir David Adjaye, known for iconic projects including the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., designed the building as his first U.S. residential high-rise. Adjaye has stepped away or been removed from assignments over the past week, including what would have been his first design in Chicago, following a Financial Times report on allegations of sexual misconduct from former female employees at his firm.

A Lightstone spokesperson declined to comment to CoStar News about the FT report on Adjaye.

For his New York project, the public plaza park outside the building serves as something of an urban living room with arch design features that echo the arched windows of 130 William.

The building also features 20,000 square feet of high-end amenities including an infinity-edge spa pool, a basketball court and what’s billed as one of only two private IMAX theaters in New York. Hill West served as the executive architect on the property.

The "whole idea for the design was based on the history of New York," Lightstone’s Avram said.

The building “appeals to a really diverse audience” with condo buyers a mix of people from New York or from the tri-state area along with some foreign buyers, Avram added. He said the majority of the building is used as primary residences or as “high-use” second home instead of as investment properties.

 “It's been very difficult for a lot of other builders” in the past couple of years with higher interest rates and inflation, Avram said. "In the first 30 days, we did 30 deals. ... We started off really well and the momentum just continued.”

Pricing at 130 William spans from under $1 million for a studio to $20 million for a penthouse, according to Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group, the brokerage exclusively handling sales and marketing for the property.

The success of 130 William St. runs counter to the broader market. The number of Manhattan condo and co-op sales year to date has dropped 38.4% from a year earlier with average sales price seeing a 4.2% drop, according to brokerage Douglas Elliman’s second-quarter market report compiled by appraisal firm Miller Samuel.

In the second quarter, the number of luxury residential sales closed in Manhattan fell nearly 40% from a year earlier with the average luxury sales price declining 4.6% to $8.5 million, according to the report.

130 William’s completion also is another sign of lower Manhattan continuing its transformation into a 24/7 livable domain.

Lower Manhattan had 34,243 units in 345 residential buildings in the first quarter, with 5,776 units in 18 buildings under construction or planned for development, with more than one-fifth as condos, according to a study by the Alliance for Downtown New York.

In addition to 130 William St., One Wall Street, a 56-story art deco landmark, also has begun offering tours for luxury condominium sales in what was touted as the biggest office-to-residential conversion in the city’s history at the time.

“We felt like there was a lack of homes downtown that really were high-end quality in a fully amenitized building,” Avram said.

He added that Lightstone had also considered developing 130 William as a rental building or as a hotel property or as both a hotel and condo building after it acquired an office building and other properties and air rights on the site.

“We felt like there was something missing down here. … When you look at the demographic and psychographic … and really trying to understand who the audience is, you're starting to see there was really a lack of supply for real homes. That's where we really started to gravitate more to do a condo that would resonate with people.”