550 West 21st Street Condo Under Construction

By Brian J Pape, AIA

This aerial rendering focuses on the upper level setbacks and terraces of the yellow brick façade, looking west to the Hudson River beyond the Chelsea Piers on the left. Rendering: Visualisation One.

Construction is topped out on 550 West 21st Street, a 23-story residential building, designed by Thomas Juul Hansen and developed by Legion Investment Group and AVRS Partners LP, according to the YIMBY website.

Crews are currently framing out the fenestration with metal studs and insulation boards on the entire reinforced concrete superstructure, making a very colorful temporary presentation. Façade and window installations feature a light beige brick façade surrounding floor-to-ceiling windows, loggias, and setbacks topped with terraces. Especially intriguing are the vertical sawtooth setbacks breaking up the façade along West Street, which is offset from the Manhattan grid. The 250-foot-tall structure will contain 172,000 square feet of floor area for 83 condominium units on a nearly 0.5-acre site.

With floor-to-ceiling windows, loggias, and setbacks topped with terraces, the purple insulation boards present a colorful façade in this view looking south. Norman Foster’s architecture office designed the condo tower (left) several years ago across 21st Street. Photo: Michael Young for YIMBY.

The project was initially started by Casco Development, which acquired the site for $50 million in 2014 and planned to construct a nearly 200,000-square-foot building with 34 condominium units and 43,510 square feet of commercial space. The project fell into bankruptcy last summer with a debt of $527 million after only an extensive foundation and basement walls were in place.

Legion took over the development last year with the help of a $56 million loan from Deutsche Bank and a $155 million construction loan from Eldridge Real Estate Credit. The developer is aiming to add another 11,000 square feet to the scope in exchange for a $7.8 million donation to the West Chelsea Affordable Housing Fund.

The area is rich with art galleries and high-end residential projects, complete or planned. The nearest subways are the C and E trains at the 23rd Street station on Eighth Avenue and there is bus service on 23rd Street. 550 West 21st Street is slated for completion in mid-2027 and sales are expected to launch later this year. Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group is contracted to sell and market the units.