The Cortland

The exterior is the building's signature. Stern's office worked the LaSalle limestone base and the handmade-brick shaft into a composition that holds its own against both the cast-iron and warehouse stock to the east and the glass towers along Eleventh Avenue. The brickwork — five colors, hand-laid, riveted accents — is the kind of labor-intensive detail that has nearly vanished from new construction, and it is the reason the building photographs as masonry architecture rather than as a clad frame.

The 144 residences span studios through five-bedroom homes across 26 stories. Olson Kundig's interiors favor warm, durable materials and generous proportions; select homes carry marble fireplaces and private terraces, and corner layouts capture Hudson River views to the west and city light to the south and north. Ceiling heights, floor-to-ceiling glazing where it suits the plan, and modern mechanical systems are all new-construction standard here. Pricing at launch ran from the high $2 millions for the smaller homes into the eight figures for the largest layouts and terraced upper-floor residences.

For a building of its size, the amenity program is unusually complete: a 75-foot lap pool, an 11,200-square-foot health club and spa, a regulation squash court, a golf-simulator lounge, a two-story children's playroom, a maker space, a screening room, a pet spa, and a landscaped rooftop terrace with river views — close to 20,000 square feet of shared space. The building runs a full-service operation with a 24-hour attended lobby and concierge.

As a condominium, The Cortland imposes none of the financing limits or admissions hurdles common to the city's co-ops. Financing is flexible — there is no board-imposed cap on the percentage a buyer may finance. There is no admissions board or interview — a purchase clears through a condominium right of first refusal that is, in practice, rarely exercised. Pied-à-terre, trust, LLC, co-purchase, and investment ownership are all customary at a building of this profile, and subletting is permitted with far fewer restrictions than a co-op would impose. The building maintains a pet program with a dedicated pet spa among the amenities; specific weight and breed parameters are set by the condominium's house rules.

Recent sales

Recent closings at this building, curated by The Roebling Team research desk. Apartment-level facts are independently verified before publishing; sale prices reflect the recorded transfer amount at the NYC Department of Finance.

Market read. Most recent trades (2026) cleared a median $2,726/sf across 7 sales. Median listing discount -0.0% over ask.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-00694-7502) 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.

The case for The Cortland is architecture plus flexibility. You are buying a masonry building designed by one of the country's most recognized residential architects, with interiors by Olson Kundig, in a condominium structure that lets you finance freely, hold in a trust or entity, and resell or sublet without a co-op board between you and your plans. That combination — pre-war presence with new-construction systems and condominium liberty — is the heart of the value here.

Underwrite the carrying cost realistically. New West Chelsea condominiums carry common charges scaled to the amenity package, and you will want to confirm the building's current real-estate-tax posture and any abatement timeline against your own numbers before you commit. The amenity suite is genuinely deep, which is part of what you are paying to maintain. We help buyers read the offering plan, benchmark the price per square foot against the West Chelsea new-development set, and structure the deal.

The marketing core is the building itself: a Robert A.M. Stern exterior in handmade brick, Olson Kundig interiors, and a 20,000-square-foot amenity program — durable differentiators that separate a resale here from the glass inventory along the avenue. Lead with the architecture and the river position.

Benchmark to West Chelsea's newest condominiums and the High Line corridor, not to the neighborhood's converted lofts or rental stock. A resale clears through a condominium right of first refusal rather than a co-op board, which is itself a selling point to the financing- and flexibility-minded buyer this building attracts — a faster, more predictable closing path. With the building only recently into its resale cycle, early sellers benefit from limited comparable supply and the strength of the sponsor's pricing.

If you're weighing The Cortland, these nearby Chelsea and downtown buildings round out the comparison set:

• 340 West 19th Street — West Chelsea building near the High Line
• 224 West 18th Street — Chelsea loft-district address
• 212 West 18th Street — full-service Chelsea building
• 250 West 15th Street — Chelsea building south of the gallery district
• 365 West 20th Street — Chelsea building in the historic-district fabric

The Roebling Team at Compass specializes in West Chelsea, the High Line corridor, and downtown's design-driven new-development market. We publish this profile because buyers and sellers evaluating a building like The Cortland deserve building-specific intelligence — the architecture, the amenity program, the condominium mechanics, and where the pricing sits against the rest of West Chelsea's new inventory.

If you're considering a purchase or sale here, a 30-minute consultation is the right place to start — we'll walk the comparison set and the numbers with you.