This month, as residents start moving into new West Chelsea condominiums at 555 West 23rd Street, the project’s developers will surely be thinking “better late than never.”
Initially conceived as a rental project in 2002, Jeffrey Levine, who heads Douglaston Development, said he decided less than a year ago to sell off its units because the condominium market in the neighborhood has become “an incredible destination.” Because of the conversion, sales on the 336 units did not start until August, but 40 percent of them were sold as of late October.
“We were late in the game,” said Richard Cantor of Cantor Pecorella Inc., exclusive sales and marketing agent for the property. “If it had been planned originally as a condo we would have started selling at least a year before this stage.”
Once marketing efforts were underway, sales were off to a slow start due to a summer market, but have picked up considerably in the fall, Cantor said. Prices range from $465,000 for a studio to over $1.6 million for a two-bedroom penthouse with a terrace overlooking the Hudson River.
Though 555 West 23rd hasn’t officially opened, a grand opening party was held in early October to allow guests people connected to the project, expectant future residents, brokers, and prospective buyers to tour a finished and unfinished floor and to mingle in the common areas, including a landscaped outdoor courtyard, lounge and fitness center. The luxury building also boasts onsite parking, a 24-hour doorman, and concierge and a valet service that offers everything from shoe repairs to making restaurant reservations in Paris.
“There’s no other building in the neighborhood that has the level of amenities this one has,” said Halstead senior vice president Richard Hamilton, who is one of the top-selling agents of properties in Chelsea. “Not just the physical amenities, but the service amenities which is one thing a building of that size can do. Because they are doing that, they are definitely attracting interest.”
Adding to the buzz will be the opening of six art galleries occupying the ground floor retail portion of 555 West 23rd, turning the block into an “art row” that also includes four galleries housed next door at the Tate, a luxury rental building.
The new condo between 10th and 11th avenues actually comprises two buildings (12 and 14 stories high) extending to 24th Street and connected by a glass atrium.
“It’s very hard to put two buildings together in a coherent and consistent form,” said Stephen B. Jacobs, the architect who designed the red brick building with interior designer Andi Pepper. “We created a central focus where all the amenity spaces were located, and in doing that we were trying to break up the length of the hallway by bringing in daylight.” Jacobs, who teamed up with Pepper to design Hotel Gansevoort, said zoning laws only permitted the construction of two buildings on the previously vacant lots instead of one but “not because it’s what we wanted.”
Though zoning posed a design challenge, this and other residential projects around West 23rd Street would not have been developed at all if it weren’t for the area being rezoned in 1999 because industrial commercial uses were going unwanted.
The developer of 555 West 23rd said the building’s design and common areas remained as initially planned despite the conversion to condos. Changes were made to the finishes, such as the addition of porcelain tiles in the bathrooms, oak strip flooring, and granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances in the kitchens. Typically, rental buildings have less expensive finishes than condos because of the transient nature of their residents.
“We made it so it’s a luxury condo product,” said Steven Charno, vice president of Douglaston Development.
As a result, the project incurred additional costs of 10 percent, bringing the full development value to “in excess of $150 million,” Levine said.