Yesterday's West Chelsea mega update, which included the glassy Yves currently under construction on 18th Street, got us thinking about our old friend, designed by Ismael Leyva. We decided to check in on how sales are going at the 41-unit building, and according to SteetEasy, 21 units are in contract and there are only six active listings?all pricey penthouses except for one (Flip? Already?) on the seventh floor. One of those penthouse listings made our bow tie spin: a combination offering of PH#11 and #12 for a whopping $16,490,000. There aren't that many details floating around about this megalisting, because sales and marketing brokerage Cantor Pecorella doesn't put their listings online, but we do have the floorplans for each unit, pulled off the Yves website. Our gut reaction was, whoa, $16.5 million at Yves?! A building without the starchitect cachet of most of its new neighbors? But we're going to play devil's advocate for a bit and explain why this whole crazy idea actually makes a lot of sense.
For one, the spreads are massive. When exterior square footage is added to the total counts of both units, you're talking 7,891 square feet of sky-high Chelsea living. So, while the price is eye-popping, it actually comes out to just under $2,100/sqft, certainly a crapload of money, but not outrageous when compared to the prices being asked by other high-profile new buildings in the neighborhood. And while most of those buildings have a big name attached to the design and High Line views, Yves might impress a big-bucks foreigner or two for not being quite as far west as those other buildings, where things right now look a little bombed-out.
Plus, all those huge prices being paid along the High Line?looking at you, 200 Eleventh!?have removed whatever stigma existed about shelling out eight figures for something in Chelsea. Of course, if anyone buys this double-penthouse madness, they'll have to tweak the plan (unless they want eight bedrooms) which means the final cost could be significantly more than $16.49 million. But hey, what's a few more rubles between friends?
· 166 West 18th Street PH#11/12 [StreetEasy]
· Curbed's Yves coverage [Curbed]
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