When the new W Hotel & Residences on Washington Street kicks off sales starting next week, potential buyers will be able to bid on condominiums costing $2,000 a square foot — or $800 more a square foot than the average downtown condominium.

“I just can’t see that for downtown or the financial district; I think that’s an overly aggressive shot,” a managing director at Prudential Douglas Elliman, Andrew Gerringer, said.

Demand for these high-priced condominiums will be determined soon enough, with the sales office for the 58-story development scheduled to open Wednesday. In preparation, a real estate marketing guru, Michael Shvo, is unrolling a plan to lure potential buyers. Starting Monday, he has hired 10 fashion models to distribute postcards on Wall Street, and he will wrap six coffee carts with advertisements announcing the development. On Wednesday, the carts will offer free coffee. This is on top of a full-page advertisement in the New York Times and a sponsored tent during Fashion Week where celebrities perched on furniture similar to the designs for the new hotel.

On Wednesday the entire inventory — 223 condominiums on floors 23 through 56 — will be offered at opening-day prices. This is a break from the tradition of brokers selling a limited number of apartments at the initial price, then releasing more gradually at increasingly higher prices.

“It’s just for us a way to accommodate the amount of interested buyers we have,” Mr. Shvo said. More than 2,000 people had pre-registered on the building’s site as of Monday. The building, which will also have 217 hotel rooms on floors six through 22, is not scheduled for occupancy until 2009.

In addition to the aggressive marketing techniques, Mr. Shvo and his team will lure potential buyers with an over-the-top sales office that includes a dimly lit room with a full bar and the smell of scented candles. A member of the sales team will pull visitors through a high-tech cinematic presentation with videos projected onto curved walls, a spinning globe that controls a computer, and an interactive tour of the building controlled by hand movements.

Then, they will get escorted in a golf cart approximately 100 feet down the street to another showroom with a model apartment and “closing rooms” where they can view floor plans.

“We are trying to re-create the experience of what it would be like to live in a W Hotel — the convenience, the luxury of the brand,” Mr. Shvo, wearing a gray suit with a white shirt buttoned to the sternum, said.

The apartments will start at $2,000 a square foot, with one bedrooms priced at $1.05 million to $1.85 million, and two bedrooms listed for $2.19 million to $2.64 million, according to Mr. Shvo.

“We are selling a lifestyle,” he said. “The lifestyle of very active people, a social lifestyle. It’s for people who are young and want to have fun.”

The new W Hotel will rise alongside as many as 13 other hotel projects under construction or planned for sites below Canal Street, according to the Real Estate Board of New York’s August list of Manhattan hotel development. The other projects include a Global Hyatt in the old headquarters of the JPMorgan building at 75 Wall St. and a luxury hotel/condominium building by Larry Silverstein at 99 Church St.

“Downtown is very much an evolving market,” a senior managing director at CB Richard Ellis’s hospitality and gaming group, Daniel Lesser, said. “It’s becoming a 24/7 type of environment down there. It’s becoming a community in and of itself.”

The architect of the new W Hotel, Charles Gwathmey, describes his concept for the hotel in one of the videos projected in the sales center as an “iconic, translucent lantern in downtown Manhattan.”

The Los Angeles-based company, Graft, which is known for its use of curves and ambient light, will assemble the furniture in the hotel. Their designs will be in the hotel rooms and 64 of the residences.

In line with Mr. Shvo’s description of the building as being “sexy,” some of the rooms will feature fully translucent showers right next to the beds. The shower walls are made with “scintilla” tiles, which change as bathers stand in front of them. One of the renderings boasts a “peekaboo” shower, which depicts half a naked woman behind fogged glass.

The Graft kitchens include a giant plasma screen hidden behind cabinet doors and another in the main living area.

All of the units of the building will feature maple doors, Italian crocodile-textured ceramic tiling, towel warmers, Sub-Zero refrigerators, Miele cooking equipment, and Asko washer/dryers.

Residents of the condominiums will have access to the same amenities as the hotel guests, including a comprehensive 24-hour service called Whatever/Whenever/Wherever, where agents try to fulfill all guest requests, ranging from room service to photocopies to tickets to shows.

Residents will have exclusive access to a digital lounge with flat screen televisions, wireless Internet access, and video game systems, as well as a café, gym, spa treatment rooms, and a rooftop terrace overlooking the city.