New Dev Sales Star Elena Sarkissian Brings Gramercy’s 200E20TH Closer to Sellout
by David Hay
June 2025
To say that Elena Sarkissian has been essential to the dazzling success of four starry additions to the Manhattan skyline would be to underestimate the award-winning Douglas Elliman agent’s unique skills in the art of new development sales. Her deep understanding of the market and how to reach and engage new buyers with these projects has yielded some of the highest absorption rates recently seen in the city.
But it would be hard to overestimate her invaluable role in bringing 200E20TH to 70% sold in less than a year and a half.
After launching sales at the 20-story condominium in New York City’s rarified Gramercy neighborhood in January 2024, Sarkissian went on to sell 30 percent of the 52 residences within six weeks—all at the asking price with the buyer paying all the closing costs. Critical to the success of the project—a partnership between developers Tidhar Group and Yoel Shargian, architecture firm CetraRuddy, and Douglas Elliman Development Marketing—is the fact that she has been involved since its early stages.
That’s very much how Sarkissian prefers to work. Being a Sales Director requires deep creativity and expertise over a broad gamut. Her fluency with architecture and interior design, her intimate knowledge of many a New York City block, and the fact that she would be the one working directly with prospective buyers are all core pillars of her approach.
“I need to be able to tell the buyer a story that connects with them and inspires their imagination,” she tells me—all the more reason to have a hand in conjuring that story from the outset.
“We all spent two years together in pre-development,” she recalls, noting that 200E20TH was the first NYC apartment building for the Tel Aviv-based Tidhar Group. “They needed this condo to make its mark.”
They didn’t need to worry that Sarkissian understood the stakes. In crafting her story, she knew the development’s proximity to the neighborhood’s crown jewel, Gramercy Park, would be a crucial hook.
“Gramercy is known for its classic architecture and its famous occupants, yet the neighborhood has been evolving into a more modern era with new construction buildings everywhere,” she continued. “Having views of Gramercy Park and being able to walk just a half a block to it have been a big draw for us.”
To distinguish the boutique 20-story building located on the corner of Third Avenue and East 20th Street, the designers at CetraRuddy strove to give it a signature exterior. Their solution: a curving, windowed façade. Already unique, it was originally meant to feature dividing uprights and window panels rendered in a graphite tone. The shimmering, soft-bronze hue they ultimately chose complements the building’s curved corners to make it “all a bit more on the sexy side,” Sarkissian says with a hint of triumph.
When it came time for her to launch marketing and sales for residences, Sarkissian was fresh from successful sales of new developments in Tribeca (108 Leonard) and the Upper West Side (One West End) and about to begin sales on the Upper East Side (The74). You might say she was primed for the challenge.
“When you’re the Sales Director, you are effectively the face of the building,” she said. “You are also leading the sales team and liaising between your clients, ownership, and the marketing team at Elliman. You have to be an effective communicator and know how to manage expectations. Often that requires a lot of diplomacy. At 200E20TH, I was more than ready. I so knew the story of this building.”
The team enlisted B&B Italia to create the interior design for the model apartment and coordinated with the builders, CMA. “They were amazing,” she recalls. “Every single apartment ended up having a punch list of no more than one item—absolutely unheard of.”
The thoughtful programming of 200E20TH’s amenities was a further draw, including the panoramic views of the spectacular rooftop terrace and the terraced garden on the second floor (“a hint of Gramercy Park right in the building,” she says).
Now, with sellout in sight, Sarkissian easily ticks off all the stars that had to align for success: “A quality product, properly priced; a sales runway that was strategically planned and having a Sales Director who wasn’t hired on game day!”
The mother of an energetic four-year-old daughter, Sarkissian isn’t one to slow down for a victory lap. Certainly not when the Tidhar Group and Yoel Shargian have their sights on a new Manhattan development underway—and a proven sales and marketing leader at the ready.
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