By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
FINANCIAL DISTRICT — A lucky college student from Florida won an apartment in the W New York Downtown through an HGTV sweepstakes, the television network announced this weekend.
Adam Venckauskas, 21, a senior at the University of Central Florida, will receive a fully furnished one-bedroom apartment in the recently opened W on Washington Street. As part of a prize package worth about $1.5 million, he will also get a brand-new Acura ZDX.
"No way, no way," Venckauskas, a civil engineering student, said when HGTV showed up on his doorstep and surprised him with the news. "I'm speechless!"
HGTV broadcast Venckauskas’s reaction during a special about their Urban Oasis Giveaway Saturday night.
Venckauskas’s name was picked from more than 15.5 million entries to win the 900-square-foot apartment, which has sweeping views of lower Manhattan and was furnished by interior designer Vern Yip.
Venckauskas, a Boca Raton, Fla., native, applied for the sweepstakes at the urging of his mother, Genevieve, who joked that now she doesn’t have to worry about buying her son a graduation present.
