Rosie’s New View

By Josh Barbanel

RISMEDIA, Sept. 27, 2007-(NYTimes.com)-Rosie O’Donnell, the comedian, talk show host and actress, is giving her regards to Broadway. Over the summer, she signed a contract to buy a pied-à-terre in the heart of the theater district on the corner of Eighth Avenue and West 46th Street, in a new condominium of steel and tinted glass known at the Platinum.

O’Donnell’s two-bedroom unit on the 22nd floor of the 43-story building is high enough to provide a clear view to the south and west, and close to a new West 45th Street headquarters for a theater, music and dance education program she set up to work with public school students, Rosie’s Broadway Kids.

The price of her new apartment at the Platinum was $1.97 million, according to Ric Swezey, a broker with the Corcoran Group, who represented her in the transaction. The building has 220 apartments, indoor and outdoor yoga studios, spa and treatment rooms, and a lobby with a 26-foot-long fireplace and 15 feet of plasma screens playing what are described in promotional material as “mood-enhancing videos.”

In May, O’Donnell left her position as a co-host of “The View,” a daytime talk show, and now is preparing for the release of a memoir, “Celebrity Detox,” due out next week. Last week, she was in Los Angeles, for the filming of “Nip/Tuck,” an FX television series about two plastic surgeons.

Swezey said Ms. O’Donnell and her partner, Kelli O’Donnell, had been looking for an apartment for several months, but only in the theater district, and O’Donnell quickly decided she wanted something with good light that was high enough to clear other buildings.
Jordana Magdieli, a spokeswoman for the condominium, said that more than half the apartments are now in contract. Prices range from $800,000 to $7.5 million.

In October 2005, O’Donnell, who has four children, bought a home in Nyack in Rockland County, and a few months later bought a one-bedroom apartment at the Lumière, a condo development at 350 West 53rd Street. The new apartment at the Platinum won’t be ready until next summer.