The developer, the Gotham Organization, created a 10,000-square-foot food hall on the ground floor that now has about nine mostly casual restaurants, including Ivan Ramen Slurp Shop (Japanese), Indie Fresh (eclectic), Choza Taqueria (Mexican) and the Cannibal (eclectic, with craft beers). It is now a destination for Broadway theatergoers and Midtown office workers. Residents of Gotham West and the company’s other properties receive discounts.

“We could have gone the conventional way and put in a drugstore, a bank and things like that, and would have made more money,” said Christopher Jaskiewicz, the chief operating officer of the company. “Instead we curated a market that ended up making the building itself more attractive, and we rented the apartments for more than we would have otherwise.”

Rents range from $2,785 a month for studios to $7,475 for three bedrooms. Mr. Jaskiewicz said the building was fully occupied.

Similar projects are in the works in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. One is the 1.8 million-square-foot City Point in Downtown Brooklyn, which will ultimately feature three residential towers as well as 36,000 square feet of dining and another 30,000 square feet devoted to food retailers.

Robert Dankner, the president of Prime Manhattan Residential, a developer of luxury apartments, uses the term “social capital” to describe how restaurants and real estate work in tandem.

“Social capital is the overall feeling of options and convenience of a location that restaurants create,” he says. “This is part of the fabric of New York.”

Mr. Dankner said he was in the process of selling a “very expensive” townhouse in Manhattan, and one of the main draws for the clients is the neighborhood.

“They want to be able to walk outside and go one block north or south and have a cool restaurant,” he explained. “And there is a lot to be said for that.”