An elevated promenade could be the ribbon that unwinds through Manhattan’s next hot neighborhood, changing what it means to live ‘on the park.’
The area of West Chelsea around 10th Avenue to 11th Avenue, from 16th Street north to 30th Street, could in the next few years see some of the briskest condo development of any area in Manhattan. And much of that development will happen around what’s being called the High Line, a 6.7-acre span of former elevated train track running 22 blocks ending at 34th Street that’s expected to become a park.
Groundbreaking is slated by the end of 2005, and nearly $70 million in public funds has already been allocated for development.
The pending park and a recent rezoning of the area by the city have united like weather fronts over most of West Chelsea to help rain development on a neighborhood dominated by high-rise rentals and aging manufacturing and commercial space.
“Dating back 10 or 12 years ago, it was strictly kind of a gritty, warehouse area,” said Stuart Siegel, managing director at Grubb & Ellis, which is marketing a new 20-story commercial condo building called the Chelsea Arts Tower on West 25th Street, an office and art gallery development among the many residential projects set to rise.
Siegel has worked in the area for more than a dozen years. “It was kind of a blighted area,” he said. “Not much money had been spent in the buildings.”
The site for the Chelsea Arts Tower, which is going up on a former parking lot, was bought for $9 million, said Siegel, who helped broker the land deal. The glass and concrete tower, set to open in early 2006, will feature galleries and terraces for exhibits and collections, with some of the space projected to sell for up to $1,000 a square foot.
Other developments bolster the story of West Chelsea’s emergence.
There’s 555 West 23rd Street, two new luxury rental buildings with 337 units being redesigned by Andi Pepper and Stephen B. Jacobs as condos. One-bedrooms, according to the New York Post, will start at $550,000 and two-bedrooms could go as high as $1.6 million. Douglaston Development topped out the buildings just this spring, making their short lives as rentals a telling example of the rush to capitalize on West Chelsea’s changing residential face.
The former eyesore that’s become a beacon for the neighborhood has lent its name to another bright spot, the Highline 519. The project at 519 West 23rd Street features 11 floor-through condos marketed by Prudential Douglas Elliman. Although it’s about one block from its namesake, Andy Gerringer, director of Elliman’s development marketing, said the Highline 519 was started more than two years ago, “before all the hoopla about the High Line became serious.”
Studios there will start at around $700,000 and two-bedrooms may go as high as $1.75 million. These prices are well above Manhattan norms: The average sales price was $380,073 for a studio in the second quarter 2005, according to appraisal firm Miller Samuel, and $1.54 million for a two-bedroom.
The Related Companies is also planning a residential building between 16th and 17th streets on the east side of 10th Avenue, fronting the High Line. Further south, a new luxury hotel is planned at Little West 12th and Washington streets. Developed by Andre Balazs’ Hotels AB, it will be dubbed the Standard, New York. Details remain scarce, but Polshek Partnership has been named as the architect.
Overall, between 7,200 and 10,000 new residential units may be built in West Chelsea in the next seven to 10 years, according to broker estimates. As many as 900 could spring up within a single square block, around 23rd Street between 10th and 11th avenues.
“It’s really going to be creating a whole entire neighborhood onto itself,” said Christopher Mathieson, managing partner at JC DeNiro & Associates, which is nearly doubling the size of its Ninth Avenue office in anticipation of the residential influx.
As Mathieson drove down the West Side Highway in early August, rolling past recent residential developments in the West Village, he posed a question he thinks many will soon ask about 10th and 11th avenues farther north.
“It’ll be the same way for West Chelsea,” he said, pointing out newer high-rises in the West Village. “People will say, ‘Remember when nothing was here?'”