House That Hank Built To Become Homes

American International Group Inc.’s New York headquarters building soon may have some new tenants.

That’s because real estate developer Young Woo, who bought the building from AIG earlier this year, intends to convert the top 40 floors of the 66-story building into condos, according to a story on the Wall Street Journal’s Web site last week. The story quotes Fox-Pitt Kelton Cochran Caronia Waller (USA) L.L.C. real estate analyst Robert Stevenson as saying his firm “believes this deal represents a good example of the types of opportunistic transactions that are likely to arise over the next year from the financial crisis.”

In the article, Mr. Stevenson estimates Mr. Woo would get at least $1,000 per square foot for condos in the building, which, in turn, would generate about $600,000 in profit for each unit sold.

AIG may have been driven to the brink of disaster in part because of subprime mortgages, but for its headquarters’ new owner, real estate looks like a prime investment.