{"id":308150,"date":"2026-07-28T23:15:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T23:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/308150\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T23:15:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T23:15:27","slug":"bill-ackman-buys-125-west-end-avenue-for-260m-brain-research-institute-commercial-observer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/308150\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Ackman Buys 125 West End Avenue for $260M Brain Research Institute \u2013 Commercial Observer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Billionaire hedge funder Bill Ackman has kicked off his $260 million play to establish a brain research institute on Manhattan\u2019s Upper West Side.<\/p>\n

Pershing Square Foundation<\/a>, the philanthropic arm of Ackman\u2019s fund, dropped $188 million to acquire 125 West End Avenue, according to city documents<\/a> filed Tuesday. The 400,000-square-foot life sciences building planned for the site will eventually host Ackman\u2019s massive brain research center, the Ackman Oxman Institute<\/a>, Fortune first reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO: Ventas Buys Senior Living Community in SoCal for $57M<\/a><\/p>\n

The sale by Taconic Partners<\/a> reportedly precedes another in-contract sale for the neighboring building, 320 West 66th Street, for roughly $70 million. Together, the acquisitions would secure Pershing Square Foundation an estimated 700,000 square feet of research and office space between West 65th and West 66th streets.<\/p>\n

Ackman told Fortune that the charitable venture was inspired by his 26-year-old daughter, Lucy, who previously suffered a brain hemorrhage, as well as his wife, Neri Oxman, who lost her mother to Alzheimer\u2019s disease.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pershing Square Foundation has teamed up with Mount Sinai Hospital System<\/a> to develop the research institute, although the development timeline is unclear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The life sciences and office spaces at 125 West End Avenue, also called West End Labs<\/a>, appear largely vacant, according to the building\u2019s website.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The building belongs to a 3.4-acre campus, known as West End Campus, sold to Taconic by Silverstein Properties for $230 million in 2019. West End Campus also includes 320 West 66th Street and a vacant parcel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Taconic repositioned the campus as a purpose-built research and laboratory complex. Its previous lives include the American Broadcasting Company (ABC)\u2019s former campus, a Chrysler Motor Company facility and printing facilities for The New York Times.<\/p>\n

Spokespeople for Pershing Square Foundation and Taconic did not immediately respond to requests for comment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Emily Davis can be reached at edavis@commercialobserver.com<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Billionaire hedge funder Bill Ackman has kicked off his $260 million play to establish a brain research institute…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[116634,116635,6718,2664,75,84,83,116636,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-308150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-125-west-end-avenue","tag-320-west-66th-street","tag-bill-ackman","tag-investments-sales","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-neri-oxman-channel","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}