- Year built
- 2008
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 1101
- Floors
- 11
- Landmark
- No
Every recorded sale at this building, 2009–2026
Price-per-square-foot over time, the line- and floor-premium curves, and every recorded sale.
- Median $/sf
- $2,285
- Listing discount
- 6.3%
- Recorded sales
- 18
- On record
- 2009–2026
The building exists because of a zoning change. In 2005 the city adopted the Special West Chelsea District, the rezoning written around the rescue and conversion of the High Line. The project on this site had begun as a two-story renovation for a gallery owner; the rezoning gave West Chelsea property owners a new and tradable set of development rights, and the scheme was reworked into a ground-up eleven-story building with a developer attached. Two transfers of development rights, from separate West 25th Street lots inside the district, were recorded against the site in June 2007. That sequence — small renovation, rezoning, air-rights purchase, full rebuild — is the West Chelsea story in one lot.
What went up is the only Shigeru Ban residential building in New York. Ban worked with Dean Maltz, his New York collaborator, on a façade that is a machine rather than a surface: three bays, each carrying perforated metal shutters that raise on motors, a glass railing behind them, and a window wall that folds up entirely. Opened, an apartment becomes a covered terrace eleven stories in the air; closed, the building reads as a screen. The New York Times described the effect in December 2007 as an architectural performance rather than a static composition, and the shutters remain the reason the building is photographed.
The context is unusually loaded even for West Chelsea. Frank Gehry's IAC headquarters sits on the same tax block. Jean Nouvel's 100 Eleventh Avenue faces the site. 520 West 19th Street is the immediate neighbor, and 515 West 18th Street — which straddles the High Line viaduct on the same block — closed the block out a decade later. Buyers here are buying into a four-block concentration of signature architecture that is not repeatable, because the land is gone.
The structural facts a buyer should hold onto are less romantic. There are eight residences, not nine. The building took nine years from new-building filing to final certificate of occupancy, which is a long runway even by Manhattan standards and is worth understanding before assuming a smooth capital history. And the 421-a exemption that carried the early years is over.
Architecture and unit composition
The site is a 4,600-square-foot interior lot on the south side of West 19th Street. The building rises eleven stories to a proposed height of 120 feet, with 25,528 square feet of building area — roughly 3,200 square feet per residence before common area, which is why the layouts read as houses stacked rather than apartments.
The organizing move is the three-bay operable façade. Each bay carries a motorized perforated-metal shutter, a low glass railing behind it, and a folding window wall. Interiors are detailed to keep the ceiling plane uninterrupted: mechanical ducts and plumbing chases are concentrated behind full-height lacquered storage in the dining and library areas, and sliding-door tracks and downlights are recessed directly into the slab rather than into a dropped ceiling, which is how the rooms hold their height.
Residences are large and several are duplexes. Published descriptions record a sixth-floor duplex with a 46-foot double-height living room, a 24-foot entrance gallery and two bedrooms with balconies, and a three-bedroom duplex with a double-height living room, a 28-foot open kitchen and a library with balcony below and bedrooms above. The penthouse carries roughly 3,300 square feet of interior space and close to 2,000 square feet of terrace, balcony and roof deck. Ban and Maltz returned to the penthouse after an earlier buyer's traditional remodeling to restore the original detailing, a sequence covered by The New York Times in 2011. The ground floor is a separate commercial condominium unit, built as gallery space.
Building operations
This is a doorman building of eight residences. There is no amenity program in the contemporary sense and none is claimed. The relevant operating question at this scale is not the amenity list but the mechanical one: an operable, motorized façade is a building system, and it is the system a buyer should diligence hardest. Ask for the maintenance history of the shutter and window-wall assemblies, the replacement-part position, the reserve, and whether any of it has been the subject of an assessment. On a nine-unit condominium there is no denominator to spread a façade problem across.
The building's Local Law 11 façade cycle status and current reserve position should be reviewed for any specific transaction; neither is documented in public records.
Policy framework
Ownership form: Condominium. Transfers clear through a board right of first refusal rather than a cooperative-style approval, which produces the faster, more predictable closing timeline typical of the form.
Pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC, trust and foreign purchasers: Permitted under the standard condominium framework. Minimum lease terms and any rental cap are not documented in public records and should be confirmed with the managing agent.
Pets and house rules: Not documented in public records.
Real estate taxes: No building-wide exemption. The 421-a benefit that began in 2012 no longer appears on the roll. Underwrite full unabated taxes on the specific unit against the current bill, then apply the co-op/condo abatement only if the buyer will occupy the unit as a primary residence.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $14,063/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $146
Source: NYC LL84 benchmarking and PLUTO · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
See full Local Law 97 analysis — emissions history, scenarios, methodology →Facade safety — Local Law 11
The latest available FISP filing classified the facade as Safe — no repairs were required at that inspection. Facade inspections run on a fixed five-year cycle; future inspection, repair, and any assessment decisions remain building-specific.
How to read this, and where it comes from
QEWI = Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector — the licensed engineer the city requires to sign the report (the independent expert, not the managing agent).
Penalties shown are amounts DOB assessed against filings on record across 2015–20 to 2020–25. The FISP dataset does not record whether they were paid, contested or remain open, so treat the figure as history rather than a current balance and confirm the building’s standing with the managing agent.
Source: NYC DOB facade filings (FISP) · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
421-a Tax Abatement
- Benefit ended
- 2022
- Fully taxed since
- 2022
- Program
- 421-a (10-year)
The 421-a benefit has run its term. Taxes on these units have stepped up toward the full assessed amount, so the low carrying cost this building once carried is no longer available. Price from the current tax bill, and treat any comparable sale made while the abatement was still running as a different asset.
Source: NYC Dept. of Finance property-tax exemption records (421-a), refreshed 2026-09-06 · The Roebling Research Library. Confirm the exact step-up schedule on the building’s DOF tax bill. The benefit last appears on the 2021 assessment roll, which is what dates the end of the term.
Recent sales
Sponsor sales ran from 2009 into 2011 and the building sold out to eight separate, unrelated buyers — individuals, trusts and holding entities — with no bulk transfer and no single owner holding the residential inventory. Resale volume since has been thin, which is what an eight-unit building produces: single-digit trades across fifteen years, several of them entity-to-entity.
Because the residences are large duplexes and simplexes with substantial private outdoor space, per-square-foot comparison against conventional West Chelsea new-development inventory understates them; the terraces, the operable façade and the architectural provenance are not in the price per foot. The right comparable set is the small group of signature-architect West Chelsea condominiums rather than the larger full-service towers along Eleventh Avenue, whose economics and buyer pool differ. Market statements here should be indexed to the last complete year rather than to partial-year data, which is thin at this price point. Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
Recent closings at this building, curated by The Roebling Team research desk. Prices are the transfer amounts recorded with the NYC Department of Finance; apartment-level detail is checked against the building’s own file in The Roebling Research Library before publishing.
| Date | Unit | Apartment | Price | PPSF | vs. Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 11, 2026 | PH | 4 BR · 4 BA · 3,319 sf | $8,550,000 | $2,576/sf | -14.3% |
| Mar 2, 2026 | 4 | 4 BR · 3 BA · 2,695 sf | $5,375,000 | $1,994/sf | -8.8% |
| May 29, 2025 | 6 | 5 BR · 4.5 BA · 4,644 sf | $8,500,000 | $1,830/sf | -4.5% |
| Mar 8, 2022 | 4 | 4 BR · 2,695 sf | $4,640,000 | $1,722/sf | off-mkt |
| Aug 19, 2021 | 8 | 4 BR · 3 BA · 2,695 sf | $4,750,000 | $1,763/sf | -4.0% |
| Jul 30, 2021 | PH | 3 BR · 4 BA · 3,319 sf | $7,700,000 | $2,320/sf | -13.5% |
| Aug 10, 2018 | CU | 3,537 sf | $3,250,000 | $919/sf | off-mkt |
| Nov 2, 2016 | 1 | 3 BR · 1,986 sf | $4,000,000 | $2,014/sf | -8.0% |
Market read. Most recent trades (2026) cleared a median $2,285/sf across 2 sales. Median listing discount 6.3% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Full closing history with price-per-square-foot over time, the complete retrade record, and every line that has traded.
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-00690-7502) and verified listing data. Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified by The Roebling Team research desk. Not all transactions cross-verify with ACRIS records — sponsor and LLC purchases sometimes record at stipulated values rather than market price; square footage from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.
What to know if you’re buying
Ignore PLUTO's year built. The city file says 2008. The first temporary certificate of occupancy issued in August 2012 and the final in March 2015. Automated valuation output keyed to 2008 will misprice the building.
There are eight residences, not nine. The recorded unit-lot schedule carries eight residential units plus a ground-floor commercial unit. Published sources that say nine are counting the gallery.
Underwrite full taxes. The 421-a exemption is gone. This is the single largest gap between the sticker price and the true monthly number for anyone comparing against abated inventory elsewhere.
Diligence the façade as a mechanical system. Motorized shutters and folding window walls are the building's defining feature and its principal long-term maintenance exposure. Ask for service history, reserve position and any assessment record before contract.
Small denominator, large building systems. Nine unit lots carry the whole cost of an unusual building. Read the operating budget and the reserve, not the amenity list.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the architecture, and document it. This is the only Shigeru Ban residential building in New York, and the coverage in The New York Times and Architectural Record is part of the asset. Provenance is the argument no competing West Chelsea building can copy.
Correct the public record up front. Buyers pull the city data and see 2008 and nine units. Present the certificate of occupancy history and the recorded unit schedule in the offering materials rather than letting them surface in diligence.
Be direct about the tax posture. The abatement has burned off. Presenting the current full bill alongside True Monthly Carrying Cost analysis produces better outcomes than a late discovery.
Same-building comparables are thin. With eight residences and low turnover, pricing has to be built from line-specific and floor-specific analysis, not a building average.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 524 West 19th Street, also evaluate:
- 520 West 19th Street — the immediate neighbor on the same tax block; the closest peer by scale and location
- 100 Eleventh Avenue — Jean Nouvel's 2010 tower directly across the avenue; the other signature-architect façade on the corner
- 515 West 23rd Street (HL23) — Neil Denari's cantilevered High Line condominium; boutique scale and an equally singular envelope
- 520 West 28th Street — Zaha Hadid's 2017 High Line building; the larger full-service starchitect alternative
- 503 West 24th Street — Peter Marino's boutique West Chelsea condominium; comparable unit scale, different design argument
- 532 West 20th Street — nine-residence West Chelsea condominium one block north; the closest peer by unit count
- 515 West 18th Street — the large full-amenity condominium straddling the High Line on the same block; the opposite trade-off on scale and services
- 200 Eleventh Avenue — sixteen residences with en-suite parking; the other very-low-density West Chelsea condominium
- 245 Tenth Avenue — boutique High Line condominium with a distinctive metal envelope
- 551 West 21st Street — Foster + Partners' West Chelsea condominium; the full-service alternative at a larger unit size
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across Chelsea — read The Roebling Team Guide to Chelsea.
How to read the facts on this page. Items attributed to an offering plan describe the building as it was offered at that filing — unit mix, square footage, the amenity program as planned. They are not a statement about how the building operates today. Tax and compliance figures are sourced separately to current City records and carry their own dates. House rules, staffing and fee policy can change by board resolution without any public filing: treat every policy line here as a starting point for diligence and confirm it with the managing agent.
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