Starck brings chic to unchic 23rd Street

High-end glass tower to be his second project here

A building from ultra-chic designer Philippe Starck is coming to a less-than-chic part of East 23rd Street in Manhattan, The Real Deal has learned.

Shvo Marketing is the sales agent for the project, named Gramercy in an effort to tap into the cachet of nearby Gramercy Park. The high-end, 22-story glass tower at 340 East 23rd Street between First and Second avenues will have 207 studio and one- to three-bedroom units.

The project, with an interior that will be designed by Starck and an exterior designed by GKV Architects, is one of the surest signs that the area is heading upscale. The project is Starck’s second in the city after designing 15 Broad Street in Lower Manhattan three years ago.

Inside, amenity spaces will include an indoor and outdoor lounge custom designed by Starck’s design group Yoo. A second-floor lounge equipped with a screening room and library will connect to an outdoor terrace. Gramercy will also have a gym and private rooftop cabanas.

The sales office for Gramercy will open near the end of this month at 344 Third Avenue between 25th and 26th streets, and the development will be completed in the summer of 2008.

Buyers can personalize units according to three finishing packages coordinated by Starck. Potential homeowners have a choice of classic, culture or nature packages. Classic includes fumed oak floors, limestone countertops and grey accents. The culture package includes purple accents, Romany Blue stone counters and fumed oak flooring. The nature package includes green accent walls, white oak flooring and white Thassos stone countertops.

Homeowners can also buy Starck-designed furniture and housewares.

Another new project in the area is the completed Crossing 23rd, a full-service luxury condominium at 121 East 23rd Street, which came to market in 2005. And farther west, many of the buildings around Madison Square Park have gone or are going condo, including the One Madison Avenue Clocktower, the Gift Building and a new construction building called the Saya.

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Located on the south side of Madison Square Park, the Saya at 20 East 23rd Street will be one of the tallest buildings in the Madison Square Park area. The Slazer Development project will be 60 stories tall and have 90 units, including 18 full-floor units and one triplex.

Certainly Tishman Speyer’s purchase of the Peter Cooper/Stuyvesant Town complex south of 23rd Street for $5.4 billion is a vote of confidence for the neighborhood. There has been speculation on whether units at Stuy Town — approximately three quarters of which are rent-stabilized — will be converted to condos eventually.

Recently Tishman Speyer began making back the billions it spent buying the complex by increasing rent as much as 33 percent on non-stabilized units. Tishman Speyer said that despite the rent hikes, it has seen a renewal rate of 80 percent among non-stabilized tenants.

Gramercy fills a luxury need on East 23rd Street, said Michael Shvo, president of Shvo Marketing. “East 23rd Street is changing. It’s on the edge of transformation.”

Units are priced around $1,000 per square foot, with studios starting at $440,000 for 430 square feet. One-bedrooms are priced at $630,000 for 600 square feet; two-bedrooms are $1.1 million for 1,100 square feet and $1.65 million for 1,600 square feet.

When it came to pricing, Shvo looked at condos and co-ops in the core Gramercy Park area as comparables. The light and space of 23rd Street, a wide, two-way street, was also a factor in pricing.

“People will have phenomenal views, light and air,” Shvo said. “It’s very open and very airy. It will make an apartment feel like it never ends.”

According to Randy Gerner, principal of GKV Architects, the glass façde of the Gramercy references the glass towers of Midtown.

Starck’s first residential project in Manhattan was called Downtown by Philippe Starck. Located at 15 Broad Street, the development began sales in August 2004 for its 326 units. Downtown also had a line of furniture that homeowners could purchase.

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