Amirian plans new 12-story condo in Chelsea

The Amirian Group scrapped plans to convert a commercial building in Chelsea into luxury residential condominium units and is instead constructing a new, ground-up 12-story building.

The developer filed plans Wednesday for a new condominium project at 117 West 21st Street, dubbed “The Twenty1.” The building will have nine units spanning a total of 33,771 square feet, according to a permit application filed with the city’s Department of Buildings.

Amirian demolished a four-story commercial building that was previously on the site to make way for the project. The Amirian Group, led by David Amirian, bought the property last year for $28.5 million and initially intended to convert the building into condos and construct an additional eight floors.

Amirian told The Real Deal Wednesday that he decided instead to start from scratch to speed up construction.

The condominium will feature a series of full-floor and duplex apartments. The first two floors, the ninth through 10th floors and the 11th through 12th floors will be duplex units.

Sales launch on Thursday, Amirian said, with full-floor units ranging $5.5 million to $7.8 million and the duplexes $14.7 million to $17.8 million. When asked about the pricing, Amirian said that he tried to price below neighborhood averages for similar products due to the softening luxury residential market.

“Like every other smart developer, you have to throw everything out the window,” he said. “I think the market has changed, and we want to sell the units.”

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly described the state of the four-story building previously on the site. It’s been demolished.