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The Atelier, a 46-story condominium apartment tower at 635 West 42nd Street, was topped out last month and opened a sales office this month.

Occupancy is anticipated in January, 2007.

The building will have 478 studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments.

Costas Kondylis is the architect and has stated that the design was inspired by the oceanliners that used to dock nearby. "Atelier," he has said, "recalls the bow of a great ship interpreted all in glass with wrap-around balconies and expansive views."

The slab tower has all glass facades at its corners and the north and south facades have four 2-story-high protruding facade elements at the corners of the building that extend about two-thirds of the way across the facades in alternating fashion. The effect is very striking, bold and high-tech.

The Atelier will have a 12,000-square-foot fitness center, a sky-lit indoor pool, a sun deck, a Sky Lounge with billiards room, catering kitchen and sun deck, full basketball and volleyball courts, a 100-car garage and 15,700-square feet of ground-floor retail space.

It is the first phase of a 1.5-million-square-foot complex of commercial and residence space that is being developed by The Moinian Group and MacFarlane Partners.

The Moinian Group owns more than 14 million square feet of commercial and residential space in Manhattan.

MacFarlane Partners, which is based in San Francisco, is the leading minority-owned real estate investment management in the United States with about $2.2 billion in investor equity and $8 billion in properties completed or in construction. MacFarlane is investing in the project on behalf of its venture with the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), the nation's largest public pension fund, to invest in urban-infill properties in major metropolitan areas.

The Atelier represents about one-third of the total complex that is expected to take shape over the next four years. It occupies most of the city block on the north side of West 42nd Street between 11th Avenue and the Hudson River. The second phase of the project includes a 1.4-acre lot at 605 West 42nd Street at 11th Avenue on which about 300 condominium apartments and about 350 rental apartments are planned.

The Atelier will have a concierge, a landscaped recreation terrace, cross-town shuttle service, and Bosch washers and dryers in each apartment. Kitchens will have white gloss cabinets with under-cabinet task lighting, white quartz kitchen countertops, Sub-Zero glass-door refrigerators, and stainless steel Bosch appliances. Master bathrooms will have polished Bianco Verde marble floors and wall detailed with polished Panda white marble walls and tub surrounds, Hansgrohe chrome faucet and fixtures and fully-recessed storage cabinets.

The developers purchased the project, which will be known as Atelier, in June from the J. D. Carlisle Development Group and CUBS 42nd Street LLC.
Architecture Critic Carter Horsley Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.