Archstone Chelsea (New York City, New York)

 skyscraper, apartment building, 2004_construction

421-foot, 36-story residential building completed in 2004. Designed by Costas Kondylis & Partners, it was originally named The Aston, but renamed when it was sold to the Archstone property management company in 2005.

The building is clad in off-white brick, metal and silver-blue glass. The base rises five floors at the north and south wings, with a 1-story section in the center of the main frontage along the avenue, a small 1-story section at the east end on 27th Street where a parking garage entrance is located, and a 1-story section at the east end of 26th Street with the main entrance. Along the avenue, the base spans 11 bays (either three or four windows wide), lined with storefronts of glass and grey metal. The storefronts are topped with grey metal louvers, and the brick piers have grey stone bases. The 5-story base section on the north facade has a 3-window bays flanked by two 4-window bays. On the south facade, the 5-story section of base has four bays of triple-windows. All the windows have grey metal framing and many of the bays have black metal vents.

The tower rising above the base is offset to the north. The tower portion has many corner windows layered like fish scales, with a series of chamfered corners receding to both ends. Near the south end, the west facade has a projecting, curved curtain wall of glass and metal rising the full height of the tower, four bays wide. The southern facade is rounded, with a projecting bay and curtain wall similiar to that on the 6th Avenue side. The other bays have either two, three or four windows per bay.

The building contains 266 apartments, as well as a 85-space parking garage. It is one of several high-rise apartment buildings that have radically transformed the city's former "Flower District" that played host to wholesale florists for decades in the area just to the north of the Ladies' Mile Historic District. The ground floor is occupied by a Bank of America branch, Waldy's Pizza-Penne, Qwnech Juice Bar, a 7-Eleven convenience store, and a Citizens Bank branch.