In Manhattan, air rights are typically worth about half the value of the land beneath it.
But around the High Line—the relatively new above-ground park built into a defunct railroad track on the city's far west side—airspace is selling for $500 a square foot, a record price that's $125 more than the ground beneath it, according to the New York Post's Annie Karni.
A combination of limited supply and growing demand to build higher residential buildings near the High Line has sent prices soaring, the Post writes.
And a change in city code has also pushed up air rights prices in the area. According to the Post:
Typically, air rights can be sold only to an adjacent building. But in 2005, the city cut a break around the former rail trestle. Property owners in the corridor abutting the park between West 18th Street and West 30th Street could sell air rights to sites throughout West Chelsea.
The purpose was twofold: to give a boost in value to property owners who opposed construction of the park, and to ensure that tall buildings didn’t block air and light from flooding the nascent green space.
Most of the air rights around the park are already spoken for. Around 277,000 square feet has been sold since 2005, and just 60,000 square feet of air rights remain, meaning the owners of that space stand to make millions.
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