Plaza Hotel is Underperforming with Low Condo Demands

The ostentatious Plaza Hotel is underperforming compared to the ultra-deluxe high-rise buildings on nearby "Billionaires' Row."

The CEO of Sony Music Entertainment, Doug Morris, has recently sold his two-bedroom at the Plaza Hotel, located at 768 Fifth Avenue, according to The Real Deal.

The median price of the Central Park classic per square foot was $3,636 when it was partially converted to condos by Elad Properties in 2007 and 2008, one of the costliest condo units in the city at the time.

But over the last one and a half years, the median prices of Plaza Hotel stand at a mere $4,325 per square foot -- a good improvement but is nowhere nearby 15 Central Park West, which has a median price of $6,323 per square foot, and $5,340 per square foot at the Time Warner Center, as reported by the New York Daily.

For prices at the nearby eight buildings, along with 15 Central Park West, the Park Imperial, the Metropolitan Tower, Essex House, Trump Parc and Trump Park Avenue, the average price went up by 37 percent over the past eight years, as compared to only 19 percent at the Plaza, according to the Daily News.

"The Plaza just didn't turn out to be the great project it was supposed to be," Jay Glazer told the Daily News.

The Plaza Hotel, which had a roster of previous owners including Conrad Hilton and Donald Trump, is on the news again, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The Sahara Group, the current majority owner of Plaza Hotel, must convince India's Supreme Court to make good on the $6 billion regulators say the hotel owes. Or else, the Indian government will take action to seize the historic hotel building and sell it to the highest bidder.

The 67-year-old Subrata Roy is the founder of the Sahara Group, whose logo is emblazoned on every corner of the hotel and from news channels to supermarkets. He has been held for more than a year in an Indian jail on contempt charges, with bail set at $1.6 billion.