Bill Cheng files $136M plan for stalled Gramercy condo

Construction permits for 150 East 23rd Street first surfaced in 2014

A rendering of 150 East 23rd Street and the previous site (Credi: ODA and Google Maps)
A rendering of 150 East 23rd Street and the previous site (Credi: ODA and Google Maps)

Nearly 10 years after picking up the land for a project at 150 East 23rd Street, New Jersey developer Bill Cheng has filed an offering plan for 50 condominiums at the still under-construction building, records filed with the New York state Attorney General’s office show.

Cheng, his son Kent and daughter Lillian are asking a total of $136.4 million for the 50 apartments, or about $2.7 million on average.

Residential marketing firm Cantor Pecorella will handle sales at the project. When reached by phone, Richard Cantor said prices at the condo would range from $1.075 million for a one-bedroom to $8.5 million for a 2,800-square-foot penthouse.

“We expect to be topped out in a couple of months and we expect to deliver product sometime in late 2018 [or] early 2019,” Cantor said.

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Bill Cheng is the owner of WY Industries, a food packaging and condiment manufacturer in New Jersey. In 2009, he bought three low-rise buildings on East 23rd Street between Lexington Avenue and Third Avenue for $9.5 million. Five years later, he filed initial demolition and construction plans, calling for a 46-unit condo building of 80,000 square feet. ODA New York is the architect. Cantor said an additional parcel needed to carry out the building plan was acquired in 2015.

In 2015, Shanghai Commercial Bank provided Cheng with $58 million for construction, property records show.

Over the past several years, the stretch from 20th Street to 30th Street has been one of the busiest areas for development on Manhattan’s East Side. At 122 East 23rd Street, Toll Brothers City Living is constructing an 18-story condo designed by Rem Koolhaas. And at 45 East 22nd Street, Ian Bruce Eichner’s Continuum Company recently built one of the area’s tallest buildings, Madison Square Park Tower.