Thunderbolts: How Much Did The Avengers Tower Cost?

"Thunderbolts*" reveals that the Avengers Tower has been renamed in the wake of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) acquiring it to further her political agenda. Now called The Watchtower, she uses it to send the villainous Sentry (Lewis Pullman) after the titular team of misfits and Senator Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan). This results in the location hosting some action-packed chaos, but Valentina likely had to fork out the big bucks to turn the property into a battlefield. With that in mind, how much did it cost her to buy Avengers Tower?

IGN spoke with New York City real estate maverick William T. Cohen for an estimation of the skyscraper's value, and let's just say Valentina probably needed Tony Stark-levels of wealth to buy it. In his own words:

"The metric by which we would measure the value would be price per square foot. So my guess is, there's nowhere where they safely tell you whether it's a million square feet, or a million and a half, or how large it really is ... So we're kind of shooting in the dark here, without any of the underlying math, but I would say one could easily assume that the Avengers Tower would sell for a billion dollars or more based upon the look of it, the size, and the location."

The tower's real-life counterpart is the Metlife Building, which was valued at around $3 billion as recently as 2024. As such, it's entirely possible that the MCU location would have cost Valentina significantly more than the figure Cohen is throwing around, but let us not forget that property values change all the time. The good news, though, is that the Avengers' old base has more perks than other buildings in the Big Apple.

Cohen noted some other pros and cons associated with buying a building like the Watchtower. In the Marvel Universe, people can land helicopters on top of it, which is a neat perk as helipads were banned in New York City in 1977. This law was introduced after a tragic crash into the Metlife Building — then called the Pan Am Building — in May of that year. However, while having the helipad could be advantageous for folks, it would also require the building's proprietors to pull some serious strings with city officials, and that could be a costly ordeal.

Not only that, but there are probably insurance issues associated with this particular MCU building due to all of the battles that have happened there in the past. As Cohen notes:

"The Avengers, presumably, don't occupy the entire building. While it's a fabulous location and it's terribly prestigious, how would you feel about being a tenant in Avengers Tower, say, on the floor beneath them, or above them, or anywhere in the same elevator bank?"

Finally, the location is also a factor, especially since the tower is situated next to Grand Central Station. Being in the heart of such a metropolitan area makes it a desirable property, and those types of buildings cost serious money. Overall, though, Marvel fans will be happy to see the skyscraper on the screen again, regardless of its monetary value, and maybe it will be featured again, as the "Thunderbolts*" post-credits sequence teases more Avengers-centric action coming our way.