Hedge fund executive Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Foundation has acquired two buildings on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for $260 million, with the goal of creating a brain research center at the properties.
Fortune reports the foundation paid $190 million for 125 West End Avenue and $70 million for the next-door 320 West 66th Street for $70 million. The combined properties span 700,000 square feet and will become the future home of the Ackman Oxman Institute.
The new center will be developed in partnership with New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital System. The impetus for this facility is deeply personal for Ackman, whose 26-year-old daughter Lucy suffered a brain hemorrhage in February and was found lying on the floor of her apartment 15 hours later; Ackman said she has been improving significantly since that incident. Oxman is the last name of Ackman’s wife, Neri, whose mother died from Alzheimer’s disease five years ago.
The Ackman Oxman Institute’s new board will include Nobel Prize cell researcher Jim Rothman and Stanford University neuroscientist Andrew Huberman.
125 West End Avenue was originally built to house a Chrysler parts and service facility and was reconfigured to become a research and laboratory site for life sciences companies. 320 West 66th Street is a long-defunct broadcast studio building once occupied by ABC/Capital Cities.
Photo of 125 West End Avenue courtesy of Taconic Partners
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