Posted by Leonard Steinberg on February 2nd, 2014

The Atlantic Foundation, a nonprofit funding group founded by an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, has sold a development site at 540 West 21st Street in West Chelsea for $50 million, or about $714/sf to Casco Development Corp, which is controlled by a foreign real estate investor named Uri Chaitchik. The site allows for a 250ft tall tower up to 70,000sf in size. If additional air rights are purchased, this could swell to 100,000sf.

While significantly cheaper than the Victor Homes/Shvo site at Tenth Avenue, especially considering this site affords protected river views which always command a huge premium, only a little more than 50% of any building built on the site can be residential, with the remaining portion reserved for commercial space, such as office, retail and hotel, according to the zoning in the area.

Across the street, Norman Foster’s 551 West 21st Street is about to rise out of the ground, further enhancing what has become known as the PLATINUM COAST, that stretch of prime, river-front properties from Tribeca all the way up to 200Eleventh Avenue at the Gagosian Gallery. Eleventh Avenue continues its upward spiral.