Things are heating up in the West Chelsea Starchitecture District, and not because of the sunlight bouncing off all that metal and glass. Recently, the first closings happened at Selldorf's 200 Eleventh Avenue and Nouvel's 100 Eleventh Avenue (reportedly?we're still waiting on something to hit public record), and now the ink has dried on the first deal at Shigeru Ban's Metal Shutter Houses. Finally in possession of its mechanical metal shutters, the "bodega building" is one of the more interesting offerings of the High Line-adjacent luxury boom. The somewhat gimmicky design has only a handful of units, all of which were spoken for practically before the shovels hit the ground. Asking prices bordered on the ridonculous, but that didn't seem to hurt this small collection of new West Chelsea trophies. Or so we thought!
Via StreetEasy, we've got word of the details of the first closing, which happened back on October 29th: Unit #2, a 2,754-square-foot 4BR, 4BA listed at $4.5 million. A hefty price tag for the low man on the 11-story totem pole, but the apartment ended up selling for just $3,417,900, 24% off the asking price and a relatively sane $1,250/sf. Is this the domino that topples the entire Starchitecture District? Probably not. Records show that the buyer is Dean Maltz, probably the same Dean Maltz who is an experienced architect himself, and also just so happens to be a partner in Ban's American practice. So while we can't count this as a true test of Metal Shutter Strength, it certainly makes the wait for the stats on the second closing a lot more interesting!
· Listing: 524 West 19th Street [Corcoran]
· Metal Shutter Houses [Official Site]
· Metal Shutter Houses coverage [Curbed]
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