NYC Luxury Condo Project Wants to Leave Its Troubled Past Behind
Twisting towers near Manhattan’s High Line park open after eight years and work by two development teams.
The effort to finish building a Manhattan condo project with a troubled past is finally reaching an end.
Move-ins start this week at One High Line in West Chelsea, a pair of twisting towers owned by billionaire Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries and New York-based developer Witkoff. Sixty of its 236 units are under contract, including the west tower’s top penthouse, listed at $52 million, and many one-bedrooms starting at just over $2 million.
“It’s been a rapid success over the past year or so” since sales began, said Alex Witkoff, co-chief executive officer of his family’s firm.
Ultimately, it took eight years — four more than originally scheduled — to complete the Bjarke Ingels-designed project, once known as the XI. Access and Witkoff bought the property in foreclosure after the initial developer, HFZ Capital Group, which paid a record-setting price for the land in 2015, ran out of money.
HFZ had halted construction in 2019, the same year it promised to finish the towers. In the time since, New York’s luxury market went through a pandemic deep freeze followed by a boom as lockdowns eased. More recently, economic uncertainty and rising interest rates have taken a toll on demand, but new developments in neighborhoods such as Chelsea and Greenwich Village have continued to sell briskly, with many wealthy buyers paying cash.