Mercedes House looking south from Tenth Avenue and 53rd Street. (Courtesy Two Trees / photo: Alexander Severin/RAZUMMEDIA)

It’s hard to avoid the advertisements for Mercedes House; they’re everywhere. The ads, with their renderings of a completed project, employ the recent trend of touting the building’s architectural credentials, in this case “designed by Enrique Norten” of TEN Arquitectos. One could be forgiven for thinking the project was finished a long time ago. But could real estate savvy New Yorkers not notice a huge serpentine-shaped building rising on Manhattan’s West Side? Not likely. In fact, the Two Trees development is only about one quarter complete. However, as the ads note, you can move in right now–if you want to rent. More than 220 rentals are done, and when we took our walk-through last month financing was in place to complete the remaining 665 units, which includes 170 condos.

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