Art gallery inks deal to lease entire 38K sf Chelsea building

As it waits to build out its new West Chelsea home, contemporary and modern art gallery Hauser and Wirth will be moving into Property Markets Group’s West 22nd Street building.

The longtime staple of the neighborhood’s art scene signed a lease for 38,000 square feet at PMG’s 548 West 22nd Street, right next door to where they gallery has plans to construct a new five-story home.

“We are pleased that such an important gallery will be located in our building,” PMG founder Kevin Maloney said in a statement. “The two Dan Flavins in the stairwell which are on loan to us are constant reminders of the building’s important heritage in the art world.”

Hauser and Wirth, the international gallery founded in Switzerland in 1992, will take possession of the space in September, with its first exhibition scheduled for November.

The gallery will occupy PMG’s full building for two years with an option for a six-month extension at a price of $3.8 million a year, PMG noted, as it waits to move into its new gallery space next door.

Back in October, Hauser and Wirth filed plans to construct a five-story, 32,000-square-foot building designed by Annabelle Selldorf next door at 542 West 22nd Street with space for a bookstore, showroom, offices and workshop.

The gallery, which is relocating from its former home at 511 West 18th Street, controls the property under the terms of a $26.8 million, 42-year lease with landlord Steven Helf of Helzen Associates, with a 45-year extension.

PMG bought the building on West 22nd Street in 2014 for $40 million, and filed plans in January the following year to add 15 stories onto the four-story building. It was not clear if the developer was moving forward with the plans. — Rich Bockmann