Developer Beats the Financing Clock in $19.3 M. Chelsea Building Buy

On Sept. 15—while the rest of the world was preoccupied with the demise of Lehman Brothers, Bank of America’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch and AIG’s request for a government loan—at least two parties in this city went about business as usual.

Anbau Enterprises bought the diminutive, five-story 124 West 23rd Street from Franpearl Equities Corp. for $19.3 million. The building last traded in 2004 for $10.6 million.

Stephen Glascock, a principal at Anbau, said that given the turmoil on Wall Street, he feels fortunate to have his financing from Bank of New York Mellon locked in place.

“We were in contract for over a year, and we locked our construction financing in quite a while ago,” Mr. Glascock said. “I think one of the good things may be that we’ll be one of the few projects coming online at that time.”

Said project, which should cost around $50 million, will be a 16-story, 34-unit luxury condo building, with an emphasis on green design. BKSK architects will design the building, to be decorated by Andres Escobar. The development will further cement Madison Square Park as an actual residential neighborhood—even if you’d be hard pressed to believe it at noon on a Wednesday, when the greensward is packed with 20-something creative types employed in the surrounding Class B office shanties.

But a residential neighborhood it’s become. The Anbau development, slated to come online in spring 2010, will join developments 15 Madison Square North, One Madison Park and Rem Koolhaas’s 23 East 22nd Street.

Massey Knakal’s Paul Smadbeck, Brock Emmetsberger and James Nelson represented the seller in the transaction. Anbau’s other projects include the residential conversion of 110 Central Park South and Loft 55 in Hell’s Kitchen.

drubinstein@observer.com