The penthouse at Acqua Vista in Little Italy boasts a rare 3-bedroom 4-bath two level floor plan. Each bedroom is a master while soaring windows up to 20 feet in height, complete with fully automated remote control shades, provide dazzling views of the city, bay, marina, cruise ships and more.

What does a $10 million Downtown condo look like? If it’s the Top of the Mark, it looks like a warehouse with vertigo views. Glass stretches from the raw floor 20 feet to the ceiling. Views of San Diego — and Mexico — as close as Petco Park and as far as the Point Loma ridge seem touchable, even more so from the 2,000 square feet of outdoor terrace on three sides.

Stepping carefully past conduits jutting up from exposed concrete floors, vice president of sales and marketing Peggy O’Connell looks around the penthouse-to-be. The 32nd and 33rd floors of the building on Eighth Avenue at Island, accessed by an elevator key, won’t look too much more dressed up when it is shown to buyers and their agents, she says.

“We’ve learned from experience that buyers of this caliber want to come in and make everything just the way they want it,” she says. “We’re showing the raw material and we’ll work with them to make it their own.”

O’Connell has spent her career working on high-end real estate – the Mark is her first high-rise, she says. She walks through construction zones with perfect ease, pointing out tricky patches to avoid and intuitively aware of spots where the floor isn’t set yet.

But this is the first time she’s selling a shell, an unfinished unit. Downstairs on the 28th floor, Italian ceramic floors are set, drywall defines rooms full of sunlight and the views are still staggering. But the two units on that floor also have finished kitchens appointed with ultra-luxe appliances and granite tops. Lights are set into the ceilings and walls are up. And they’re still $1 million.

What does $1 million buy? What does luxury mean?

It’s in the size and the finish, says Dennis Serraglio of Bosa Development.

“Hardwood floors, marble, top-of-the-line appliances, beautiful finishes and attention to detail that starts with the building plans,” Serraglio says. “Location, of course, is huge.”

Luxury condos, those that would sell for $1 million and up, are relatively rare Downtown, says Russ Valone of MarketPointe Realty Advisors. Of Downtown’s 10,300 condos built since 2000 – about 700, 6.8 percent, are valued at over $1 million. But, he cautions, another 267 cost between $900,000 and $1 million, and if they were purchased by 2005, it’s very likely they’re worth more than $1 million now, bringing the proportion to about 8 percent.

For Downtown, which is certainly destination living, the market is by no means saturated. “When you start hitting the million-dollar range, your market changes from San Diego and Southern California to a national and international market,” Valone says. “There’s lots of people in that arena who’d love a luxury condo.”

At Acqua Vista, on the border of the Columbia district and Little Italy, Ronda Dodge just sold a two-floor penthouse with views of the city, the bay and north to Mission Hills on three sides. The penthouse was listed for $2.3 million. “I marketed this to national and international buyers, and corporate buyers,” says Dodge. “I had potential buyers who wanted to fly in on private jets and have a spare room for their pilot.”

The beauty of being atop the bustling neighborhood certainly adds a vibrancy and vitality to the penthouse. “Each building develops its own personality and character, and selling them means knowing the strengths of the building and the neighborhood,” she says. “Many of the things that make a home luxurious go beyond trendy finishes (such as) the construction efforts that go into keeping an interior quiet and the thoughtfulness of the layout.”

Floor-to-ceiling shades activated by remote control, lots of access to wrap-around balconies, quiet and restful bedrooms and at least one bath for each bedroom are quiet marks of luxury at Acqua Vista.

Rene Broussard of Re/Max says the million-dollar buyer wants exclusivity and the scent of luxury starting at the street. “If you walk in the building, it should look like $2 million,” he says. “They don’t have to be at the top — at Park Laurel, for example, you can spend $2 million well without reaching the top floor.”

Broussard says if he were going to buy luxury, he’d look at the new projects, including the Metropolitan, the Grande, the Pinnacle and Park Place. People who buy such swank places think of their homes a little differently than the middle-floor folks, he says.

“They usually love entertaining, they love the prestige and uniqueness, the one-of-a-kind feel,” he says. “They love top-of-the-line amenities and they use them.”

Valone agrees, but says penthouse means views — however the buyer defines it. “It depends what you think is luxury. Is a view to the water and the Coronado Bridge more luxurious than a view of Downtown?” he asks. “Is it the appointments — European cabinetry and solid-core doors, high-end appliances and fixtures, high-quality floors? I don’t know if the level of product in most Downtown projects meets the luxury standards.”

Another definition is the upper floors — with lots of square footage and ceiling higher than 10 or 11 feet.

“In San Diego, because of building requirements, condo buildings have broad, big bases to 75 feet high, and then narrow as they climb. So at 75 to 150 feet, you’re on the canyon rim, and to 25 floors there are other buildings on the periphery,” Valone says. “After the 25th floor, you’re at the pinnacle. The cost-per-foot premium goes up with the altitude, and the appointments for interiors change as you climb.”

A recent visit to the penthouse at the Renaissance reminded Valone what luxury means. “The owner graciously opened her home for a fund-raiser, and it was luxurious like a Bel Air mansion, that level of luxury,” he says. “Luxury in a condo is a different definition than in a home — a home combines indoor and outdoor space.”

After seeing $75,000 of German cabinetry torn out of a new penthouse at his Park Loft condos, Doug Wilson is leaving penthouses at The Mark bare. ‘When people spend this kind of money, they know what they want to do with the interior,’ he says.

To Doug Wilson, who’s developing the Mark and returned to marketing it after a two-year hiatus, appointments at the top ought to be left to the buyer. That’s why the Top of the Mark is a shell — though the rest of the building is certainly gift-wrapped.

Wilson’s company enveloped the building in a $10 million “skin” of metal and glass — a curtain-wall system being used in San Diego for the first time. It’s not painted concrete, he declares.

“Quality is timeless. Almost 20 years later, Symphony Towers is still beautiful,” Wilson says of his own project. “We knew we clearly had to set the bar for luxury very high, and since we don’t have to try to sell the penthouses until the building is finished, we decided not to finish the top.”

Wilson learned the approach in part from the Metropolitan’s decision to leave its penthouse blank for its buyer, Valone says. Wilson also saw first-hand that true luxury buyers have ideas of their own. “At Park Loft, we installed $75,000 of beautiful German cabinetry in a luxury unit and the buyer came in and tore them out as soon as he got there,” Wilson recalls. “When people spend this kind of money, they know what they want to do with the interior.”