If you follow Manhattan real estate, you are familiar with The High Line. And if you don't follow Manhattan real estate, and are in town for a convention or to see the sights or check out Anything Goes on Broadway or whatever... well, welcome to the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog, and we'll presume you're also familiar with The High Line. After just a few short years on the West Side, the winding, lushly landscaped park that runs on the former freight train tracks above 10th Avenue has become both one of Manhattan's must-visit venues and one of the greatest success stories in Manhattan real estate. While Chelsea rental listings were, truth be told, doing pretty all right before the High Line went from random-old-elevated-train-tracks to hugely popular public park, the arrival of the park gave a huge boost to apartment listings near the High Line, and helped occasion the development of such blockbuster, high-end Chelsea rental listings such as The Ohm and The Tate. And with the opening of the High Line's second stage -- which will run from 20th Street all the way up to 30th Street -- today, the High Line looks likely to work its real estate magic again, this time for North Chelsea and the emerging and highly promising Hudson Yards neighborhood bearing the goofy-ish nickname The Linc.
What will the second stage of the High Line look like? Manhattan blogs have been sneaking out photos for weeks, and the answer appears to be "very beautiful, notably like the rest of the High Line." And that's just great, honestly -- the High Line is terrific as it is, and no one in Chelsea is going to complain about having more of it. Especially if Phase Two brings the same real estate boom, in both commercial and residential real estate, that came with the first stage. If the High Line could turn 10th Avenue into a real estate hub from the Meatpacking District up into Chelsea, there's no reason why more of the High Line shouldn't do more of the same further north.
Of course, several of the High Line-adjacent luxury apartment rentals mentioned above are actually built around the second phase of the High Line -- Port 10 is on Tenth Avenue and The Tate on West 23rd Street -- and it's difficult to imagine how they could become much hotter once the park officially opens. But for new and in-progress developments in North Chelsea and The Linc, the arrival of The High Line heralds some interesting changes. Whether you follow Manhattan real estate or not, there's a decent chance that you've not heard of The Linc, which is the name that developers hung on the former un-neighborhood -- insofar as parking lots and the occasional liquor store do not strictly constitute a neighborhood -- near the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel.
If you can leave aside the nickname (and people probably scoffed at advanced-placement real estate portmanteaus like TriBeCa once, too), The Linc stands out as one of the last real estate frontiers in Manhattan -- and one that's currently benefiting from both the Hudson Yards rezoning and development project, and the arrival at its southernmost edge of one of Manhattan's most beloved new institutions. "The High Line has helped change the notion that prices and demand decrease as one moves farther away from a subway. Properties near the High Line are commanding high prices and new units are absorbed quickly once they come to market," NY1's Jill Urban writes. "The area is truly a hot destination as Phase 2 opens and Phase 3, the massive development of the Hudson Yards, gets underway. That project that may be the end of the line for the park, but will be a whole new beginning for the neighborhood." That's certainly what developers are hoping for -- and they've got 10 new blocks' worth of reason to be optimistic.
